


So It Goes

by Honorable_mention



Series: Goodbye Blue Monday [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Assassin Peter Parker, BAMF Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Field Trip, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Peter Parker, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Recovery, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-05-20 00:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 28,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19366537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honorable_mention/pseuds/Honorable_mention
Summary: Peter Parker is a lot of things. He’s a high school student in Brooklyn. He’s a geek who spends his weekends watching Star Wars and reading the latest papers of his favorite physicists. He’s a part-time vigilante. And he’s a recovering ex-Hydra assassin.Now none other than Tony Stark is tracking him down. Peter knows he could stay away if he wanted to, but where’s the fun in that?





	1. Pretty

     Peter Parker's first friend was covered in flies. His eyes were sunken and his teeth shown through the hole in his cheek. He was rotten, and beaten, and dead, and Peter loved him more dearly than he loved any other creature on the planet.

  
      Peter would sit in his room for hours with his friend. He would confide everything to him. Every worry, each regret. They all flowed from Peter's mouth into the willing ears of his friend. And his friend listened, and cared, and never tried to tell Peter what to do.

  
      Peter's friend lived in the closet, behind the books he'd collected, all on the wave behavior of electrons and other such matters that he was really far too young to understand. Every night Peter would come to his room exhausted from training or excited from another day of mission preparation and he'd tell his friend everything that had happened to him. How the Soldier had beaten him, but how he'd nearly managed to land a punch between his shoulder blades. Or how he, Peter Parker, was one day going to defeat the Avengers all on his own.

  
     Peter spent his sixth birthday with his friend. One of the nice ladies with blonde hair who sometimes watched him in the training room had snuck him a little blue stick that was awfully pretty when lit on fire and stuck in a pile of food. The nice lady had told him to blow out the stick and make a wish, so that's what he did, right there next to his friend. He closed his eyes and wished that, sometime soon, just maybe, he'd be able to look the Soldier in the eye during training and finally land a hit.

  
     The next day the men with sharp hands came and took him to a white room that smelled like bleach. They brought out a needle, and told him to breath in and out while they stuck it in his arm. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them the men smiled and told him that he'd been a very good boy.

  
     Peter told his friend about what happened, and his friend didn't say anything. The flies around his head buzzed. Peter's friend had not been doing very well lately. He seemed to have gained a bit of weight, and he couldn't hold Peter's hand anymore when Peter was scared. Peter tried to do just that, though, grasping his friend's hand as his stomach started to feel funny. Pain blossomed and raced across his skin, little pinpricks across his flesh that delved deep within his bones and exploded like shrapnel. He didn't know how long he stayed there, crying and heaving, trying desperately to cling onto something, anything. His friend just sat there, staring at him, through Peter's pleas for help.

  
     Peter was sitting alone at the mess hall when he next remembered anything. He chewed his food and watched the people around him scurry about like bugs. It was strange that they were letting him eat with all the other workers, but he wasn't going to complain. Something was different in the air. Peter seemed to be able to feel all the eyes on him, all the whispers about the kid in the cafeteria. He didn't mind them. He wondered if he would have cared before. Maybe it was just something about being six.

  
     When they brought him back to his room, they told him to stay away from the closet. A woman in a white suit was walking in and out of it with cleaning supplies, shaking her head as she went. In and out, in and out. Another lady, with brown hair piled up on top of her head and a little freckle right underneath her left eye sat Peter down on the bed. Peter wondered whether she was what people considered pretty. He'd heard the men in the hallways talking about this thing. Pretty. He was staring at the ceiling, thinking about that word, pretty, when the woman told him that he needed to report things like the one in his closet to her next time. It wasn't good for him to have those kinds of things lying about all willy-nilly. Peter nodded. His friend had been pretty, in a morbid sort of way. He'd had nice brownish-blonde hair, and he made Peter happy, even if the flies were annoying when Peter tried to sleep. He wondered if the men in the hallways would have found his friend pretty, and he thought that they probably wouldn't have.

  
     When Peter fought the Soldier again, he brought him to his knees. He held his head in his hands, until the Soldier looked up at him with something in his eyes Peter didn't understand. He frowned, and looked at the men with the strong hands who had taken him to that white room. They smiled, and told him what a nice boy he'd been. Peter felt good, just like when he'd held his friend's hand.

  
     As the Soldier was led away, the nice blonde lady who'd given him the blue stick came up to him. She laid her hand with the finely manicured fingernails on his shoulder, and whispered in his ear. She told him that she was sorry. So, so sorry. She wished he wasn't here, and that she just wished she could do something. Peter didn't know what to do, so he told her it was okay, and let them lead him back to his room.

  
     He heard the men talking in the halls about how the kid had somehow gotten a corpse. All the talk was about who the dead body had been, and how he'd ended up in the kid's possession. Peter knew he was the kid, and that the corpse was his friend. He wanted to tell them how pretty his friend was, but he thought they wouldn't understand. So he didn't say anything, just let them lead him back to his room. He took out his book on the wave behavior of electrons, and tried to understand just a little bit of it.

  
     His seventh birthday came, and Peter didn't get another pretty stick. It was okay, though, he decided, because he could just wish without the pretty stick. He could make his own rules. So he closed his eyes and wished that he could finally do something with his life.

  
     The next day the men led him to a big white room. The nice blonde lady was sitting all alone on a chair in the middle of the room, her hands tied up and her mouth covered in grey duct tape. She was crying, and her eyes were bright red. The men gave Peter something they called a gun, and one of them showed him how to load it. They put it in his hands, and told him to look at the nice lady's head and pull the little bit of metal under the body of the gun. The lady screamed through her gag, and Peter cocked his head to the side, not sure why she was so upset.

  
     "Don't worry, I'm going to make you pretty," he said. Peter took a deep breath in, and fired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so excited to get back into writing fan fiction! I hope y’all like this. I’m gonna try to update every day until I finish this, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m not sure how long this’ll be, but I’m thinking maybe ten chapters right now. Also, if you’re coming back to reread this (will anyone? I do not know), you may notice I added chapter titles because I’ve decided not to be lazy and just call them numbers.


	2. Lemons

    The Soldier stared at Peter through his dark glasses. Peter couldn’t see his eyes, but he knew the Soldier well enough to read the serious look we wore, his eyebrows knit and his lips pulled tightly back. He nodded at Peter, and Peter tested the gun on his shoulder. He fiddling a bit with the sight, which had been off for a few weeks now.

  
     “You good, Peter? Know what you’re looking for?”

  
     “Yeah. The traitor’s a man, mid-forties, black hair, should be with the delegate from Lebanon,” Peter said. This had been one of his favorite missions so far. They’d let Peter and the Soldier stay in a hotel with real towels and soap that smelled like lemons, since they needed to stay in the city a few days to scout out the traitor’s movements. Peter had even gotten to stop and pet a little dog that was tied up outside a grocery store, though the Soldier quickly made him stop. Peter couldn’t pet dogs if he wanted to be taken seriously, the Soldier told him. Peter wanted to be serious, just like the Soldier. The Soldier was so big, and so tough, and everyone liked him. All the men in the hallway told him how lucky he was to get to work with the Soldier. How they’d kill for the chance, brandishing their guns in Peter’s face and laughing. He’d laugh with them, still giggling as they led him back to his room.

  
     Peter laughed a little bit as he stared through the sight of his gun, waiting for the traitor to walk through the doors of the UN building. Peter didn’t know what, exactly, the traitor had done. It must have been bad, though, for them to send Peter and the Soldier. He remembered the traitor from when we worked with Peter. He’d always looked so serious, his face dark and gloomy, his eyes down. It was silly that they’d had to brief him on who the man was. He remembered him. He had always been the only one who didn’t laugh with the other men in the hallway. Peter had never liked him.

  
     “One o’clock, heading out of the building,” the Soldier told Peter. Peter nodded, and aimed the gun towards the man’s temple. Through the sight of the gun he saw the man look up to where Peter was. He closed his eyes, tears dribbling through his eyelids. A little smile graced the man’s lips. Peter pulled the trigger. The traitor dropped down to the ground, blood pouring out of his forehead. Peter smiled. He knew he wasn’t supposed to call the targets pretty. It upset the ladies, the man with strong hands said, hearing him talk that way. So Peter never said it out loud. He just thought it, because there was something beautiful about the way a person gives up, crumples to the ground, until all that’s left is just their body, plain and alone. Nothing’s prettier than seeing someone stripped down to their barest existence. Nothing more than skin and blood and shattered bone.

  
     “You did good, kid,” the Soldier said. “I got you this.” He handed him one of the soap bars from the hotel that smelled like lemons. Peter cradled it in his hands, inhaling the sweet scent before stuffing the soap in his pocket.

  
     “Thanks, Soldier.” Peter smiled at the Soldier, and watched as the Soldier seemed to soften, just a bit, in a way Peter had never seen before. Then the Soldier straightened up and radioed the men from the hallways to come pick them up. Within a minute a black helicopter with whirling fan blades showed up beside the rooftop, and Peter and the Soldier climbed aboard. The men strapped Peter in as he watched the street below through the window. Cop cars and ambulances with whirling red and blue lights swarmed the traitor. It was such a pretty, pretty sight.

  
     They let Peter go straight back to his room when they got back to the base. Peter was thankful, because he was always tired after missions. It could be the most routine of tasks, and yet something about all the hustle and bustle and excitement always wore him out. He was there, lying on his bed, when the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head came in.

  
     “Peter, how did the mission go?”

  
     “Nothing out of the ordinary.” He paused. “Well, actually, there was one thing.” Peter sat up and stared at the woman, the freckle under her chin staring at him quizzically.

  
     “Yes?”

  
     “The Soldier. He seems to be acting,” he tried to find the right word, “strange. I can’t describe it. There’s just something off about him.”

  
     “I’m glad you told me, Peter. That’s just the sort of thing you need to report to me.” She smiled at him. But it wasn’t a pretty smile, like the one Peter had seen the traitor make right before he was shot through the skull. Her smile was a nasty smile, all full of teeth and gum.

  
     “I’ll always report to you,” he said.

  
     “I’m glad to hear that.” She got up and walked to his door. “Dinner will he brought to you tonight. Now, as you were.” She closed the door, and Peter heard the familiar sound of the deadbolt locking into place. It kept him safe, they said. No bad men could come in with the lock. It made Peter feel good to know they were taking such good care of him.

  
     Peter was putting away a book on Fermi’s self-sustained nuclear reaction when the men brought him in his dinner. Chicken and potatoes, his reward for a job well done. He horsed the food down, and waited for the man to come back in to take the tray away. He was fast asleep before they ever returned.

  
     The next day Peter passed the Soldier in the hallway on his way to breakfast. He gave him a little wave, catching the Soldier’s eye in passing. The Soldier didn’t look back at him, just kept on walking. Not a glimmer of the Soldier with the soap shown through.

  
     That night, after training, the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head came back into Peter’s room. She sat him down and told him that, from now on, he would be doing all his missions on his own. The Soldier was moving to another base. But Peter was big, almost nine years old. He could do missions all by himself. She was proud of him.

  
     Peter held the lemon scented soap in his hand as the woman left, turning it over in his palm and letting that sweet scent wash over him. The next morning, when the men came to take him out of his cell, he gave the soap to a man with green eyes. He laughed at Peter, and told his friends that the freak had given him some soap. He held it up, and all his friends laughed with him. What a weird gift. Do you think he even knows what soap is? What a gift is?

  
     Peter joined in, letting the laughter roll over him like the smell of lemon soap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I actually updated this faster than expected, shockingly enough. I’m so happy that people actually are reading this. I honestly expected nobody to, so I really hope y’all are enjoying this fic! It’s been super fun to write and plan. Your comments make me smile so much, and I just hope everyone has a really great day.


	3. Candle

     Peter thought about the nice blonde lady sometimes, especially on his birthday. He had just turned twelve, and no one brought him pretty sticks anymore. He’d learned somewhere that they were called candles, so he worked the word around in his mouth. Candle.

     Peter had been given a book on etymology by the lady with brown hair piled on top of her head for his birthday. A gift for his hard work all these years. One of the men in the hallway had laughed, and asked her why she was giving it anything. It didn’t deserve nice things, like the little book with the red leather cover. Peter didn’t laugh with the men anymore. He was too old for that nonsense.

     Peter pulled the book from his closet, flipping to the word candle. He ran his finger over the word. Candle. From the Latin “candere”. To be white or to glisten.

     Peter was startled back to attention by a slam at his door. The men had brought him his dinner. He put the book on his bed, and watched as they laid down his food without saying a word to each other. They hadn’t let him eat with the other workers for months. He was too important, they said. They needed to make sure he was kept safe at all times.

     The men left, and Peter ate in silence. It was better that way, he thought. Plenty of time to think. Peter liked to think, and come up with ideas. He’d pulled a journal off a body one time, during a mission, and they let him keep it, as long as he let the lady with brown hair piled on top of her head go through it. They had to keep him safe, and part of that was making sure that his thoughts were good, healthy thoughts. They didn’t need to worry, because all he did was fill the journal with sketches of machines. Ideas for guns and robots and tech, all spilling from his pencil onto the paper. The lady with brown hair piled on top of her head would read through it once a week, clicking her tongue as she went. Then she’d tell him that he shouldn’t spend his time drawing such silly things, and take his journal away. But it’d always be back the next day, lying right at the foot of his bed when he came back from training.

     Things from his journal started popping up in missions, though. Special night-vision googles that adjusted automatically to new light levels. Stealth gear. Noise-canceling earpieces that dimmed the noise to a level appropriate for his enhanced ears. Not that it mattered. Peter couldn’t care less what happened to the things in his journal, as long as he got to keep writing in it.

     Everyone at the base had been stressed out recently. Peter didn’t know what was happening, but everyone was running around, and he was spending more and more time alone in his room. He’d tried to ask the men in the hallway what was going on, but they just told him to be quiet. Everything was under control. They still laughed, like they always did, but there would also be long silences. During training, there were no jabs made at Peter’s form. Just silent markings on paper, maybe a grunt or two to correct him.  
  
     It was okay though, because Peter had a mission tomorrow. They told him it was really important, some woman in New York who’d been causing problems. Peter always liked those missions, the ones he’d overheard the men in the hallways call “assassinations”. They made him feel important. Needed. Far more than gathering intel or escorting some higher-up, they let Peter know that he was making a difference. He knew the other jobs were necessary, but there was something special about the jobs where he got to hold a gun in his hands and shoot someone. It was pure power. He got to make someone pretty.

     Pretty. What an interesting word. From the Proto-Germanic word “prattugaz”. It meant to be boastful, sly, or cunning. Peter knew he was too old to think death was pretty, but he knew no better word. It was beautiful to make someone pretty. He had made the lady with the blonde hair pretty, and he had felt sly and cunning, and smart, and powerful. All the emotions he had grown to love. But there’d also been something deep within him that had felt wrong. Something strange and dark. He had watched the woman bleed from her forehead, her blood deep and red. The lady with the brown hair piled on her head had said she was proud, and those icky feelings had twisted inside of him, melting out of his mouth like candle wax. He had glistened.

     But those were bad thoughts. It just wouldn’t do for Peter to constantly be worried about the past, for it was as dead as the nice lady with blonde hair.

     Peter was woken up bright and early in the morning and dressed for his mission. When the men left to retrieve his weapons, he slipping the book on etymology into his suit so that they couldn’t see it. He didn’t know why he did it, but it just felt right.

     The hit was uneventful. He followed the woman until she took a shortcut through an alley in Hell’s Kitchen. It was two clean shots, through her heart and head, and she was on the ground. Peter took a second to appreciate the sight, then radioed the base to come pick him up. One of the men in the hallway answered him, and Peter was about to state his location when he heard the unmistakable sound of a struggle through the radio. There was muffled screaming, and then the line went dead. Peter tried to get through a few more times, but there was no response. He sighed, and put the radio down, resolving to try again in a few minutes.

    Peter waited the whole night, radioing the base over and over again, but he got no response. Slowly the sun began to rise, and Peter’s battery died. They’d come for him. They had to.

     They never did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter’s finally in New York! The next chapter’s gonna be a big one. Also, I decided to bring May and Ben into this story, so look out for that.


	4. Sorry

     Peter had never been alone before. There were always people with him. The men in the hallways. The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head. The men with strong hands in the big white room.

     Peter crept down the fire escape. Light seeped across the street as Peter walked out of the alley. It was that hour of the morning when the last stragglers had stumbled into their apartments for the night, but the early risers and office workers hadn’t started their morning rituals yet. It was a golden hour, so rarely observed in one's life. Peter staggered down the middle of the street. A taxi driver honked at him, but Peter stared him down, unmoving until the driver swerved around him, his obscenities discernible through the glass.

     Peter was lost. Without them he was lost. They were everything. He’d done his job, but they hadn’t bothered to come get him. They didn’t care about Peter. He should have trained harder, worked faster, shot better. He’d screwed up a mission a few weeks ago, almost let the woman he was trailing get away. Maybe they had finally realized what he had done, and this was their punishment for him.

     The sun kept rising. The sky changing from a muted pink to a bright yellow to a crisp blue. Birds began to awaken and chirp, their songs filling the trees. Peter heard a baby cry to be fed four blocks away, and tasted the anger from a fighting couple in the basement of the Brownstone to his left. Peter didn’t have any of his gear, the gadgets that helped him survive without being driven mad by his senses, and he could already feel himself falling apart. They would be so disappointed in him.

     Somehow Peter stumbled into a park. All his training had left him. He didn’t know the protocol for this. Had anyone ever told him?

     A jogger found him sobbing behind a bench in a little park called Balsley. She pulled him off the ground and sat him down. He wiped the tears from his eyes, cursing himself. They would never come for him if they found that he was showing weakness that easily. He was so stupid. So useless and pathetic.

     “Hey, are you okay? Do you need food? Water?” The jogger held out her water bottle. It was blue, like the candle the nice lady with blonde hair had given him. Peter snatched it out of her hand, letting the cold water dribble down his chin. His hands were shaking as he handed the bottle back to the lady. She asked him what his name was.

     “Peter.” The jogger seemed to stiffen for a second, but then relaxed.

     “Hey, Peter. My name’s May. Do you need help finding your parents, honey?”

     “My parents?”

     “Your mom and dad.”

     “I don’t think I have those.” Peter had read about mothers and fathers in his books, but he’d never known that they were real.

     “Are you alone then?”

     “Yes,” Peter whispered. The tears burned his eyes, threatening to pour down his cheeks at any moment.

     “Oh, okay,” she said. “Do you need help? Are you hurt?”

     “What do you mean? Hurt?”

     “Did anyone,” she took a breath, “touch you? In ways you didn’t want? Or hit you?”

     “I don’t think so.” A tear slipped down his cheek. A bartender down the street was cutting up lemons for the day. Lemons, like lemon soap. Pretty things. Everything is pretty, in the end. Peter could be pretty, just like the nice blonde lady.

     Slowly black dots started to swim through Peter’s vision, and he fell back against the bench.

     Peter awoke in a white room. It was like the one the men with strong hands had taken him to all those years ago. Only, there were differences. The bed he was on was much softer, and a little bear sat on the table next to his bed. That was new. He’d never had a bedside table before.

     Slowly he began to remember everything that had happened. How they hadn’t picked him up. How he’d stumbled through Manhattan, scared and alone. How the jogger had found him.

     The jogger herself was sitting in a blue chair at the end of the bed, some magazine about cars propped up on her leg. When she saw Peter was awake she came over.

     “How’re you doing?” She asked, putting her hand up as if she were about to run her fingers through his hair, and then stopping herself. Peter couldn’t bring himself to answer. All he could do was stare at the ceiling. Why hadn’t they come for him? What had he ever done wrong? Maybe that was his problem, thinking he was significant enough to be able to make mistakes. He was just a thing, and things can never do anything right, nor can they ever do anything wrong.

     “The nurses say that you’ll be fine. You were just a bit malnourished, but other than that you’ll be okay.” She smiled at him. “I’m glad to hear it. They’re trying to find out where you’re from, though I bet you don’t want to tell them.” Peter thought for a moment, then shook his head. May laughed. It was nice. Deeper than Peter would have expected, but rich and sweet like dark chocolate. “That’s what I thought. You’re just a little mystery.” May stood up, and took the teddy bear off the side table. She held it in her hands, running her manicured thumb over it’s plastic eye.

     “You know, I didn’t even think about getting you anything. This,” she held up the toy, “was my husband Ben’s idea. He’s always been the sentimental one.” She sighed.

     “Why are you doing this? Being here, and getting me that bear?”

     “Can’t I just be a nice person, Peter?”

     “No one ever does anything unless it’s for themselves,” Peter said. The lady with brown hair piled on top of her head had told him that once when he asked why there were so many traitors.

     “I guess you’ve got me. It’s just that something about you reminds me of my nephew. He died when he was just a baby, with my husband’s sister, Mary, and her husband. It was a plane crash. I remember the cops coming to our door, their hats tipped off. We were the next of kin. My husband, Ben, he asked if they needed him to identify the bodies. There wasn’t anything to identify, they said. They were just there to offer their condolences.” By the end of the story, May was crying. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her hand.

     “I’m sorry,” Peter said. He’d learned that word from the men in the hallways. They said it when something was beyond words. It came from the West Germanic “sore”, which meant to be pained or distressed. Peter had never understood it before, but something about May’s story made him feel strange. Like those icky feelings he had felt when he’d made the nice lady with the blonde hair pretty, the ones the lady with brown hair piled on top of her head had carved out of him with a hot knife.

     “Oh god, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that. You don’t need to hear that,” May said.

     “It’s okay. What was his name? Your nephew?”

     “It was Peter, just like you. Peter Parker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May’s here! Yeah! Also, it’s day four, and I’m still posting everyday, so I’m gonna take that as an accomplishment.


	5. Guilt

     Peter had been living with Ben and May for a year now. After he was released from the hospital, May had been allowed to take him home until CPS could figure out what should be done with the boy who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Things happened, as they do, and eventually the Parkers adopted him. They had enrolled Peter in school, where he was doing well enough to slip by without notice, but not well enough to warrant any kind of special attention from his teachers.

     The day he moved into the Parkers’ house, Peter went back to the roof where he’d waited for them to call back. His gear was still there. All his guns, and knives, pills and goggles and earpieces. He didn’t remember doing it, but he must have stashed it before he left. He collected everything, and brought it back to the apartment. The Parkers were letting him stay in their guest room. They told him that it was his room now, and he could do whatever he wanted, so long as he felt safe and comfortable. So he took out his Bowie knife and slit the mattress, piling everything inside. He wanted to be ready when they came back for him.

     All his gear was still in his bed. It was the morning, and he was eating breakfast while May read the newspaper. Peter had almost grown to enjoy this little morning routine. It was only temporary, though, while he spent time waiting for the men in the hallway to find him. He always kept his radio clipped to his pants, in case they ever got the connection working again. If anyone noticed, they never said anything.

     “You know, Peter, they have a new exhibit at MoMA right now,” May said, putting the paper down on the table. “It might be nice to go check it out.” Peter had learned during his time with the Parkers that May loved modern art. Put a Kandinsky or a Rothko in front of her and she’d be gushing about it for hours. Peter didn’t understand the fuss, but he put up with it, if only to keep up appearances.

     It wasn’t long before Peter and May were on the train to the museum. Peter sat down on the shiny blue seat and watched the people around him. An old Puerto Rican lady across the aisle was yelling on the phone to someone. From the bits and pieces of the conversation Peter could pick up, he thought she might have been yelling at her daughter about the upbringing of her grandchildren. Next to Peter a smoker was fingering a cigarette, eager to be out of the train and into an open area. A busker moved down the aisle singing “Danny Boy” and holding out a worn Panama hat. Someone had scribbled about the foul state of the subway car on an ad for environmentally-friendly diapers.

     Peter almost felt at home amidst the chatter of the city. He could be whoever he wanted to be, could hide in plain sight, and no one needed to know a thing about him. It wasn’t like school, where he was constantly drilled on his past and what he wanted to do in the future. It wasn’t like the Parkers’ house, where they said he could be private, but stayed up late into the night fretting about him when they thought he was asleep. It wasn’t like the base, where everything about him was public knowledge. Not that there was a single flaw with the base. It was the right place for him, and it’d be silly to think otherwise. Peter didn’t deserve privacy or individuality.

     Peter sighed when they got off the train. Here, at least, he could watch May look at the art, and concentrate on thinking of nothing.

     The exhibit was on Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola, two photographers who seemed to have strange concepts on the scale of human beings. Peter didn’t understand why anyone would use photography as anything other than a means of conveying important information, but May was enthralled. She was still blabbering on about it when they got to the little sandwich shop a few blocks from MoMA that May and Ben loved so much. They grabbed two sandwiches to go and, since it was such a nice June day, heading to a nearby park to eat.

     “So what did you think of the exhibit?” May asked.

     “It was fine, I guess.”

     “Well I thought it was wonderful. So creative and thought provoking. I just loved it.”

     “Of course you did,” Peter said. He took a bite out of his sandwich and watched a toddler chase a pigeon around on his stumpy feet. It was such a nice day. It reminded Peter of one of his missions with the Soldier. They’d had a hit in Paris, an old married couple who’d done something wrong. Peter never learned what it was, but that wasn’t important. He’d only had enough ammo to shoot one of them before having to reload. He remembered looking at the couple as he was loading the second round of bullets. He’d shot the woman, and she fell to the ground, coughing up blood. Red on her pretty white dress. Her husband had rushed to her side, falling on his knees. He’d cradled her head in his lap, and told her everything would be okay. She laughed, and said he’d always been too optimistic. Then she had pleaded for him to run. He said he’d never be able to leave her like that, dying and alone. Peter shot him through the head before he could tell her he loved her one last time. Peter and the Soldier had waited at a park to be picked up, and they had watched some French twins chase birds, just like the toddler was doing now.

     “May, I’ve done things in my life,” Peter said, taking a bite of his sandwich.

     “We all have.”

     “I know. And the things were good. Only, I thought they were, but now when I think about the things I get an icky feeling in my chest.” Like when he’d shot the nice lady with the blonde hair. “I think, maybe, I feel guilty.” Peter had learned that word when the lady with brown hair piled on top of her head said he should feel guilty for taking extra food at dinner. He didn’t deserve it more than anyone else. He had had to skip the next day’s meals in penance.

     “Oh, honey,” May said, taking his hand in hers, “do you want to talk about it more?”

     “No, I don’t think I do.”

     “That’s okay. Do you want a hug, Peter?” He nodded, letting her wrap her arms around him.

     That night Peter took the gun with the silencer out of his mattress. Silently he crept to Ben and May’s room and opened the door. He walked next to May and raised the gun to her head. She was making him soft, making him forget his purpose. Soon she would know too much, and Peter couldn’t have that. She needed to die.

     But Peter couldn’t do it. He put the gun down and ran back to his room. He put the gun back in his mattress and pulled out the book of etymology.

     Guilt. From the Old English “gylt”. Origin unknown. Just like this feeling inside him that twisted and twirled and threatened to break each of his ribs in it’s pursuit of freedom.

     What was he becoming?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m realizing now that the description of this fic might have been a little misleading, but I promise that I’ll get to it within the next few chapters. I already have the story mostly plotted out, so now it’s just a matter of actually sitting down and writing the thing.


	6. Friends

     It was the first week of seventh grade, and Peter was sitting alone in the cafeteria. He was resting his book against his binder and eating a ham and cheese sandwich. Ben had packed it for him that morning. Peter listened to his classmates chattering around him as he read. Someone giggled that Eugene liked Betty, and someone else shouted across the room that Mr. Francis was secretly an evil spy. It was all stupid kid stuff. Peter always scoffed at that sort of thing. He'd rather be doing something productive. If he had a choice, Peter wouldn't even go to school. It was such a waste of time and energy. He'd never had to go to school before, but the Parkers said it was important that he get an education.

     Peter only had a few more pages of his book to read when an overweight kid with a frayed Han Solo t-shirt sat down across from him. The kid put his tray down on the table and started to eat a carrot. He was clearly waiting for Peter to say something, though Peter had no plans to do anything besides read and eat. Eventually the kid spoke.

     "My name's Ned. What's yours?"

     "Peter."

     "Cool! That's a nice name. Are you new here?" Ned asked, finishing his carrots and moving to his fish sticks.

     "No. I started half-way through last year," Peter said.

     "I can't believe I haven't seen you around!" Ned paused. "You're in my Lit class, right? With Ms. Kross?"

     "Uh, yeah, I think so."

     "We should walk together, since that's our next class," Ned said. He finished his lunch, and pushed it aside, leaning his elbows on the table. "So what's your deal? You into Star Trek? Star Wars?" Peter sighed and put his book down on the table.

     "I guess I like Star Wars." Peter had watched the original trilogy with Ben a few months after he moved in. Ben had been on a night shift, and he had gotten home exhausted. Peter didn't know why, but Ben had flung himself on the couch and motioned to the seat next to him. Peter had sat down, and pulled a blanket around his shoulders as Ben clicked a CD into place. A massive spaceship crept across the screen as Ben started sobbing next to him.

     "Cool! I like Star Wars too!" Ned pointed to his shirt. "See?"

     "Yeah, I saw that when you sat down. It's a cool shirt." The bell cried out that lunch was over, and Ned got up, motioning for Peter to follow him. Together they walked down the hallway to their Lit class. Ned kept telling jokes, trying to get Peter to laugh. Peter tried to stay serious, but he couldn't say that he didn't chuckle once or twice.

     It was terrible. The more time Peter spent waiting for them to come get him, the worse of a person he became. Never before would he have sat on the couch with some weak-willed man, rubbing his shoulders while he cried. He never would have let himself fraternize with a child like Ned. The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head would be so disappointed in him.

     "You know," Ned said, sitting down in the desk next to Peter, "I'm really hoping that we can be friends. I'd finally have someone to geek out with.”

     Peter knew that word. Friend. The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head said that it was a weakness. Friends were what got you killed. They distracted you, kept you away from the mission. He wasn't to have them under any circumstance. May said that friends were something he really should have more of at his age.

     "Yeah, it would be nice to be friends," Peter replied.

—

     Peter was staying at Ned's house for the night. Ned’s mom worked for NASA, and she’d gotten Ned a LEGO model of a space station for his birthday a few days before. Peter was coming to the apartment to help him put it together. Peter had never been to a sleepover before, but May and Ben seemed excited about the concept. Plus, Ned seemed quite invested in the idea, and Peter was still testing the waters of this whole friendship thing. So there he was in Ned’s apartment, sitting on the floor, surrounded by little plastic pieces. He’d made sure to pack a few of his knives and his handgun in his backpack, just to be safe. They could come for him at any moment, and he needed to be ready.

     Peter and Ned had taken a break from assembling their LEGOs to get cookies and milk when the phone rang. Ned’s mom picked it up, then handed it to Peter.

     “Peter, honey! How’s it going? Ben said I should give you some space, but I just had to check up on you.” May’s voice crackled through the phone. Peter could just imagine her and Ben sitting in the kitchen, May on her cellphone while Ben stood nearby. Ben was probably pretending to be annoyed while also tying to listen to every snippet of their conversation. Peter didn’t understand why the Parkers did what they did, but their predictability was almost endearing.

     “I’m doing great, May. Me and Ned are building this cool LEGO set, but we’re taking a break now to eat some of Ms. Leeds’ chocolate chip cookies.”

     “You’ll have to bring me one. You know how much I like chocolate.”

     “I’ll grab you one before I leave tomorrow.”

     “That’s my boy. I really do need to go now. I love you, Peter,” May said. She’d told him she loved him before. But something about hearing it through the phone was different. May could say it all she wanted when they were together. It was just something people did, like saying hello, or goodbye, or pardon me. But she had called him when she didn’t have to. When she had better things to do, she had said she loved him.

     “I lov-” But May cut him off before he could finish his sentence.

     “Finish that thought when we talk later. Ben’s really bugging me to leave. We’re already late for our reservation at that nice Italian place down the street.” She hung up the phone with a beep.

     Ben and May Parker were shot four minutes later as they left their apartment complex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ned’s here! And May and Ben are dead. Yeah, this chapter was a lot. Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying it. Also, thank y’all so much for the nice comments!


	7. Grief

     The counselor's office was green. The chair, the desk, her picture of a lizard hanging on the wall beside Peter. It was all green. A little leafy stuffed bear stared up at him, not saying anything. Or maybe saying what Peter didn't want to think about. He had cared about Ben and May. Aunt May? She'd said he could call her that once. 

     The counselor sat back down at her desk. She'd been printing out an informational pamphlet for him, which she then placed in his hands. In big letters at the top it asked him if he was ready to deal with his grief. The paper was still warm.

     "I'm sorry to here about your guardians, Peter," the counselor said. She had a smudge of lipstick on her teeth.

     "Yeah, my Aunt and Uncle were good people."

     "You know you can talk to my at any time, right? I'll always be here if you need me. Everyone experiences grief differently, so take as much time as you need."

     "Uh, thanks. I'll talk to you if I need to," Peter said. He absolutely would not be talking to her.

     "You're living with a family friend now, right?"

     "Yeah." It hadn't been hard for Peter to forge documents and create a fake place he was staying. No one was really checking up on him, and he'd like to keep it that way. Someone at the base had decided that it would be a good idea for him to learn how to forge papers. At the time, Peter had been annoyed that he couldn't spend his time doing something better, but now he was glad for it. It made it that much easier to wait for them to radio him.

      "Is that going okay? Staying with Ms.," she checked her notes, "Reilly?"

     "Yeah. I miss my Aunt and Uncle, but Ms. Reilly has been good to me." Peter was using the name because it was May's maiden name.

     "That's good. Are you sure there's nothing else you want to say?"

     "No."

     "Are you sure?"

     "Can I please get back to class? I'm missing Spanish."

     "Okay. Goodbye Peter," the counselor said, nodding as Peter walked out the door. Peter sighed as he left. He opened the pamphlet she had given him. It asked if he was ready to mourn. He laughed. It wasn't like he needed to do that.

     The same night he sat alone in the warehouse he was living in and cried. He didn't know why he did it. But the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he felt more complete than he had in a long time.

     But something was gone, too. A part of him that he didn't know was there died with the Parkers. No, that wasn't true. It couldn't be. He was strong, and powerful. He worked for the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head and no one else but her superiors. But didn't he want to do what May had said was good? Didn't he want to go to art museums, and eat sandwiches, and watch Star Wars movies with Ben?

     May kind of looked like the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head. They both had the same hair, and sometimes May would put hers up in a bun when she was baking or getting ready for a shift at the hospital. And Ben would make him laugh just like the men in the hallways. 

     Only it felt different with the Parkers. He was important to Ben and May because of who he was. But at the base he was important for what he did. And wasn't that better? He could always improve his art. He could get better at shooting and could count the amount of pounds he could lift. But there was no way to measure the quality of his character.

     May would be disappointed if she ever found out what he had done. He'd heard her talking to Ben one night after he got back from his shift at the station. Ben had been out when there had been a robbery reported over the police radio. Ben had been the first cop at the scene, and he'd been the one to find the body of the teenage clerk behind the counter. May had promised that they'd find the bastard who had done it. Peter had lain in bed and stared at the ceiling. He'd killed people just like the clerk. Did that mean that he was bad too? If May found out what he had done, would she be ashamed for ever caring for him?

     May wouldn't do that. Peter had to believe she wouldn't. She'd just tell him that it wasn't his fault, and that even if it was he could get better. She'd hold him, and tell him everything would be okay. She would let him be weak. And suddenly Peter was sobbing all over again, clutching May's sweater he'd taken from the apartment. He would never be able to tell her what he'd done. He would never be hugged again. 

     In a haze, Peter got up and stumbled out of the warehouse. It was night, and it was raining, and the light of a streetlamp cast a hazy glow onto the pavement. Peter could hear a woman buying herself a drink at a bar down the street, a gin and tonic. A drunk man waltzed down the street, the scent of whiskey thick about his collar. He sang a song and winked at Peter as he tripped over the curb. He got up and dusted himself off, laughing the whole time. It must be a sign, Peter thought. The man looked so happy, and the woman was already flirting with someone next to her. Peter decided to find a bar.

     The first one he found turned out to be this grimy place called "Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls". It had an inconspicuous sign hanging outside of the door, and Peter wouldn't have known it was a bar if not for the raucous cheers that poured out of it. Peter opened the door and slipped inside unnoticed. He headed towards the back of the room, past the pool table and neon signs. He was content to just stand there for a moment, taking everything in and letting the noise wash away everything inside him. His meditation was going well until he turned around and came face to face with a man in a ridiculous red and black costume.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been writing a ton of fanfiction to distract myself from the fact that AP results come out this week, so I'm actually ahead of schedule now! I'm still going to post once a day though so that I don't spam this and then just drop dead for like two weeks. Speaking of which, I was actually wondering if y'all would rather me post chapters at the length I'm doing now or start making them longer and post a little less frequently.


	8. Sweater

     "Wait, you're a kid!" The man in the ridiculous suit seemed shocked at the revelation. "Do your parents know you're here? Or this some part of your tragic backstory?"

     "Um," Peter said. He wasn't sure how to respond to this enthusiastic man in what amounted to a child's Halloween costume.

     "Like, were your parents just shot in front of you in an alley, and now you're a billionaire who's gonna grow up to fight costumed villains and drink too much?"

     "I was just looking for somewhere to go," Peter muttered.

     "Sure. But what're you really after?"

     "I just thought it'd be cool to go in here. I don't know." Why had Peter thought this would be a good idea? He didn't believe in fate. Everything happens for a reason. If Peter were to go around and live on whims they would never come back for him. And now that May was dead, there was no reason for Peter to want anything other than the radio on his hip to crackle to life. The men would tell him there had been a mechanical error, but that they now had everything under control. They would take him home. Maybe the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head could take him to an art museum.

     "How about I get you a drink. I'd feel kind of bad if I left you here and you got murdered. Oh, and the name's Deadpool, but you can just call me Wade." The man led him to the bar and ordered a beer and an orange juice. Peter took a sip of his  juice and watched as a man behind the counter handed Wade a gold business card.

     "What's that?"

     "Sometimes, when one man hates another man very much, they decide to hire me. And I make the one man go away."

      "Absolutely not."

       "But I want to!" It had been a long time since Peter had gotten the chance to practice his craft, and he didn't want to be rusty when they came to pick him up. Plus, he missed the high of killing.

      "No way."

      "You sure?"

      "You're, like, twelve. Just get home, okay?" Wade left a few dollars on the bar and got up, giving Peter a peace sign as he left. Peter didn't know what to do. He just stood there, right next to the pool table. At the base they'd always told him that, if possible, he should help others. Even if he had more important things to do for himself, he should take care of the men in the hallways and the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head first. And at the Parkers' house they'd always let him tag along. But Wade had just left. He still might need Peter's help, though.

     Wade left the bar and began walking down the street eastward. After six blocks he turned left and continued for another quarter mile before walking into an apartment building. He entered the building and came back out approximately fifteen minutes later. Then he continued down the street for five blocks before cutting through a park and walking another eight blocks west before ringing the doorbell of a second building. Peter trailed him the whole time, running across the rooftops like he'd been taught in training. 

     Eventually a man with mussed up hair and a baggy gray t-shirt came to the building's door. Wade checked something in his hand and waved at the man. The man was about to slam the door in Wade's face when Peter took the gun he'd been keeping at his hip out and fired three rounds into the man's head and chest.

     "Shit!" Peter heard Wade shout as the body hit the floor. Peter jumped off the roof of the building, putting his gun back in his pocket and running over towards Wade.

      "I just thought you might want some help," Peter said.

      "I didn't. But more importantly, why do you have a gun?"

      "This?" He held it up. "It's really not a big deal."

      "You just killed someone? How are you not freaking out? I'm freaking out. You're a pre-teen!"

      "Relax. It's not like it's the first time," Peter said.

      "How is that supposed to make me feel any better?"

      "I'm trying to tell you that I'm young, but I'm not stupid. I know what I'm doing."

      "Do your parents know where you are?" Wade finally asked after a long moment of silence.

      "I don't have parents." But wasn't the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head almost his mother, in a way? She'd been there for him since birth. She'd taught him how to read and how to get around a basic computer firewall. She'd taught him almost all the skills he knew. 

      "Where are you staying, then?"

      "There's this old warehouse that I've set up with everything I need. I'm staying there until I find something better." 

      "I can't believe I'm doing this," said Wade. He fished around in his pockets for a moment then pulled out a set of keys with a ridiculous rubber duck attached. "I have a spare apartment that I use for work sometimes. It's in the big pink building two blocks down that way, apartment 616. Just stay there for the night. I'll come check up on you tomorrow."

      "Thanks, I guess." 

      "Don't let me regret this, kid." Wade walked down the street, and Peter thought he heard him mumble that he was getting turned into that pretentious jerk Wolverine.

      Peter walked back to his warehouse to gather all his belongings. He still didn't know whether he would take up Wade's offer, but he'd already spent a week at the warehouse, and he was getting restless. 

      When he opened the door he saw May's sweater lying on the ground where he'd left it. And suddenly the tears from earlier came back full force. He sat down on the ground and hugged the sweater to his chest. He'd spent the last few hours pretending like everything was okay, but it wasn't. Nothing could ever be okay again, because May was gone. 

     Peter couldn't believe how weak he had become. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm not going to be able to post tomorrow, but expect an update the day after that.


	9. Spiderman

      The doorbell rang. Peter put down the cereal he was pouring and yawned, still dressed in his utterly ridiculous Hello Kitty pajamas (a gift from Wade). He looked through the peephole of the door and saw Wade standing outside the door holding up a bag of Mexican food. Peter let him inside took the food. He pulled out a burrito and started eating. The cereal could wait.

      Peter had been living in Wade's spare apartment for a little over a year now. He'd been uncomfortable about the arrangement at first, until he realized just how nice it was to have his own space. Wade paid for the apartment and the utilities and in exchange Peter kept the place up for when Wade needed it. He kept all the guns and explosives safe, and tagged along with some of Wade's bigger jobs. Peter had also started taking some jobs for himself. Wade paid for his apartment, but he still needed clothes, and food, and money for the stupid nerdy things he did with Ned.

      "So, Peter, what's your plan for the day? Anything you're gonna blow up? Because if you are, you have to tell me first." One or two weeks earlier Peter had tried out one of Wade's grenade launchers on a job, and Wade had been upset he hadn't gotten the chance to see the explosions. He said they were too cool for just Peter and a future corpse to enjoy.

      "I was just gonna take a job or two. Ned's coming over for a Star Trek marathon tonight," said Peter, in between mouthfuls of food.

      "Ned! You should totally let me come over and watch the movie with you guys. I make the best comments."

       "Absolutely not. You understand why that's a terrible idea, right?" Ned had been over at the apartment one night when Wade had wandered in through an open window, gaping bullet wounds in his chest. That had been tough to explain away.

       "I understand why you don't want me to do it, but I think it'd be really funny."

       "No." Peter took the rest of the food and put it in the fridge. He then went into his room and got out the ridiculous red and blue suit he'd made a few months before. He put it on, making sure to tuck all his knives and guns into place. At first he'd tried to do all his hits in civilian clothes, but he'd learned quickly that targets didn't take him seriously. It's hard to make someone fear you when they keep laughing about how you're not old enough to shave. People take a man in colorful Spandex more seriously than they take a boy. 

      Peter had been given several gifts by the men at the base. He was stronger and faster than anyone he had ever met, even the Soldier. He could heal much faster than the men in the hallways, and he could stick to walls. When Wade had found out that last fact, he'd spent a good few weeks teasing Peter that he was secretly a spider from outer space. Eventually Peter decided to just lean into it, and he'd built himself devices for his wrists that let him shoot webs. They let people swing between buildings and they worked great as a replacement for duct tape. They were far more helpful than Peter would like to admit.

     "Do you have any cards for me? Or do I need to drop by Sister Margaret's and grab my own?" Peter had finished gearing up and was waiting by the window for Wade to finish eating his last taco.

     "I got you one. Some guy down in Brooklyn." He handed the card to Peter.

     "Thanks." When Peter first started taking jobs, Wade had tried to stop him. He'd gone on and on about the importance of having a normal childhood and keeping oneself safe. When he'd found out Peter was going behind his back and finding jobs of his own he'd given up trying to stop him. With the jobs, Peter felt useful again, and that was something he would give almost anything for.

     "Do you think you'll need any help? Cause I'm not doing much today," Wade said.

      "No, I'll be fine." Peter pulled on his mask and waved to Wade as he leapt out of the window, shooting a web and swinging a few feet off the ground. He pulled himself up and began swinging across the rooftops, heading for the Brooklyn address on the card.

      The address turned out to be the building of the man's girlfriend. That complicated things a bit. If he shot the man while he was with his girlfriend there would be a witness, and Peter did not feel up to dealing with that. While he was pondering the dilemma he saw the man excuse himself and leave the apartment, heading down the stairs and into the alleyway behind the building. The man pulled a lighter and cigarette out of his pocket. As he flicked the lighter, Peter took out his rifle and shot at the man's head. He missed and the man threw down his cigarette, running towards the door. Peter cursed himself as he reloaded, barely able to make the second shot before the man opened the thick metal door. Peter really needed to get a new gun from Wade, one that reloaded automatically. He thought about the best one to get as he dragged the man's body into a dumpster. 

     As he was leaving, Peter saw the man's girlfriend walk out of the building, looking for him. He almost felt bad, though most of that went away after he picked up his envelope full of cash from Sister Margaret's. He tucked the money into his waistband and was swinging the few blocks back to the apartment when we heard a woman scream. 

      He swung over to the sound to find a woman being cornered by a mugger. She cried for help, tears streaming down her face as she handed the mugger her purse. Peter crept down the wall behind the man and came up behind him. He knocked the man out and handed the woman back her purse.

      "Thank you so much," she said as she tried to wipe the tears from her face.

       "It's really no problem." He took a few of his webs and tied the man up as the woman watched. "You can go now," Peter said.

       "Oh, right. Thank you." She turned to leave, but then stopped. "I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are. What's your name again?"

      "Um," Peter thought for a second. "Spiderman."      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say I wasn't going to post an update today? Yes. Did I do it anyway? Also a yes.


	10. Identity

     Spiderman was the most talked about thing at Peter's school. The halls of Midtown High echoed with shouts from students about the mysterious masked vigilante. One girl claimed that Spiderman had stopped her from getting hit by a car, which Peter knew wasn't true. Another boy said that Spiderman had saved him from a robbery, which did remember doing. The boy had been sobbing the whole time, but didn't seem like he was going to add that to his story.

      The thing was, Peter had never meant to be a hero. After he'd helped that first woman she'd posted something on Twitter. It had gone viral, and it wasn't long before pictures of Spiderman were flooding YouTube. Now Peter couldn't do a job without someone asking for his help with something. He spent as much time helping little old ladies cross the street as he did actually doing hits.

      Everyone said Spiderman was a good person. He helped others and needed no reward for his actions. He just did what he did because it was right. The world was order and chaos, good and evil, black and white. And Spiderman was entirely on the light side of the force. And wasn't Peter, too? He did plenty of good deeds for people, and his day job wasn't bad either. The people at the base had always said he was good when he went on missions.

     But Wade killed people. He had the same job as Peter. And people didn't like Deadpool. They said he was a stain on society. He was the judge, jury, and executioner, and that power shouldn't be left in the hands of one man. Who was he to decide who had the right to die? 

      If Wade was bad for killing people, then so was Peter. But people respected Spiderman. They said he was good, but they also said that good people don't kill. And if they did have to kill someone, they didn't get the rush of adrenaline that Peter got from killing. Peter liked death, which meant, in the eyes of the Spiderman sycophants who claimed everywhere he stepped as consecrated ground, Peter was a bad person. 

     Maybe Peter was evil and Spiderman was good. They could be two different people. Maybe they had to be. Peter's hits no longer took his threats seriously. They just laughed it off as silly Spiderman antics. Peter didn't know if that made the moment he killed them better or worse.

     Even if they were two different two people, Spiderman haunted Peter like a spirit. His best friend kept track of the news of Spiderman religiously. Ned followed each fan account and kept news alerts on his phone. That was how Peter was able to monitor his identity and public image, though he passed it off as just a casual interest to Ned. It was through his friend, in fact, that he first learned that the Avengers were trying to find Spiderman.

      Tony Stark had been at a press conference when he first mentioned it. The reporters were throwing him softballs about his life as Iron Man and his life at Stark Industries. And then one woman asked Stark's opinions on the vigilantes of New York City. He paused for a second, and then explained that he and the other Avengers were okay with them, as long as they stayed within the confines of the law and let the Avengers know of their presence. Then the reporter asked about Spiderman. Peter looked up from his APUSH homework to watch the video over Ned's shoulder.  Stark said that he hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Spiderman yet, but that he would love to if given the chance. And then the press conference moved on.

      That night Stark Industries and the Avengers Initiative both released statements clarifying Stark's comments from earlier. Peter skimmed most of it until he got to the part about Spiderman. It said that any vigilantes who still hadn't met with the Avengers, like him, were encouraged to visit the tower so that they could be asked some questions. They said it like there was any way Peter was going to willingly talk to them.

      Peter just ignored what Stark had said. The news forgot about it within a day or two, and there hadn't been much follow-up for Spiderman. A few people had mentioned it when he helped them get their cats out of trees, but than everyone had just treated him the same as they usually did. A helping hand that never had any better things to do. 

      It had been a few months, and the Spider-mania blew over pretty quickly at Midtown. People had moved onto shinier things, though a person or two would still post about him on social media if they saw him swinging through town. Peter hadn't quite realized just how hard it would be to maintain his career as a hit-man when he was constantly being monitored by smartphones. He'd been about to catch a man he'd been trailing all weekend when a little girl had stopped him to ask for an autograph. He'd had to stop and do it to maintain appearances, and by then he'd lost the man. After that he decided to go back to wearing his normal clothes on hits because it was easier to be laughed at then caught red-handed.

      All in all, though, things were going well for Peter. His double life had turned into a triple life, but he could manage. Wade told him that he should be careful with his identities because Wade didn't want to have to come bail Peter out from an more uncomfortable situations. Wade had given Peter three "get out of jail free" cards in the form of kills Wade would do for Peter, but two had already been used up. 

      Wade also told him that he should avoid the Avengers and try to keep a little bit more of a low profile. It was almost funny coming from Wade, but Peter could tell he was dead serious. Peter wasn't sure what the story was, but he knew something had happened involving Wade, Hawkeye, and three rubber chickens. Wade was still bitter.

      Peter didn't need to be told to stay away from the Avengers, though. The first lesson he'd learned at the base, after always shutting up when someone was talking, was that the Avengers were the enemy. They were dangerous criminals who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted, and one day, if Peter was lucky, he might get to kill them. 

      Which made it that much worse when it was announced that Peter's physics class was taking a trip to the Avengers tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AP results are coming out soon and I am so stressed. I think I've mentioned it a few times, but I'm actually just a bunch of rats held together with stress and the fear of failure. Anyway, next chapter's going to be fun!  
> Also, there’s so much about this universe that I want to write but can’t fit in this fic and that kind of bothers me. I mean, the plot’s already way too far from the description, but still.


	11. Remembrance

      Peter woke up early the morning of the field trip. He took a shower, combed his hair and tried to choose the most inconspicuous outfit he could find. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then grabbed the permission slip he'd signed as Ms. Reilly and walked out the door. The train ride to Midtown High wasn't long, but Peter spent the whole ride on his phone, trying not to think about the day to come. He was just a student who happened to be going on a field trip, just like any other. So what if he was going to the exact place Wade had told him to avoid?

      No one else was there when Peter arrived, except a girl named Michelle. She was on the Academic Decathlon team with him, and they'd seen each other in the halls before, but Peter couldn't tell you a single thing about her. Well, he did know she liked to draw people in times of distress, which Peter found fairly funny. 

      Eventually the rest of the class got there and Ms. Payne, Peter's physics teacher, ushered them all aboard the school bus. Peter took a seat near the front, next to Ned, and settled in. It was just a normal day, he told himself. Peter could deal with that.

      Ned was more than excited to go to the Avengers Tower. It was all he'd wanted to talk about since the trip had been announced. He'd invited Peter over to his house the weekend before and shown him all his collectible Avengers figurines. Iron Man, Falcon, Ant-Man. They were all there. Peter had stayed over that night, and Ned spent the whole time explaining exactly why he loved each and every Avenger. Peter had just nodded along, studying the glow-in-the-dark stars above Ned's bed. 

      "Do you think we're going to get to meet any of the Avengers?" Ned asked, tapping Peter's shoulder to get his attention.

      "I don't know. Maybe." Peter hoped they didn't. Not that it really mattered. The Avengers had no reason to assume that Spider-Man was a fourteen-year-old kid. They'd be looking for someone at least in college. But he still didn't want to risk it. 

       "I hope we meet the Black Widow. I heard she can take down Captain America in a fight. Or maybe we'll see Bruce Banner! I've always been fascinated by his work on quarks," Ned rambled. He kept talking and Peter zoned out again, resting his head on the window and watching the city shoot past him.

      Eventually they pulled up in front of Avengers Tower. It was one of the tallest buildings around, floor after floor of shimmering glass racing towards the sky. It was opulent, and radiant, and clearly built for show. The class marveled at the sight. Peter knew they'd all seen it before, but still they were entranced. They shuffled in together in one massive clump. 

      The lobby was just as Peter expected it. Ridiculous. The ceiling must have been three or four stories up, with walkways encircling it every ten feet or so. Employees in gray suits and white lab coats raced around holding tablets and clipboards. It was all very chic and modern, with tasteful plantings and sparsely distributed couches. The class followed a set of signs past a little coffee shop to a desk for tours.

      The woman behind the counter looked fairly young, though Peter would guess she was out of college. She introduced herself to the class as Patty, and said that she'd be leading them around for the day. She handed them all temporary badges so that they could find their way back to the tour group if they got lost, but she promised that they wouldn't need to use them so long as they made sure to always have her within sight.

     Patty led the class to a massive glass elevator at the center of the building. Everyone piled inside, and they rode up to the sixth floor. They stepped out into a room covered in display cases and plaques. Patty explained that it was the museum floor, dedicated to the Avengers, as well as the organizations associated with them, like SHIELD. The rest of Peter's class immediately swarmed to the glass cases where you could see parts of Iron Man's first suit, early models of Hawkeye's bow, and many more tributes to the world's heroes. But Peter headed in the other direction, towards the less flashy part of the gallery.      

      All the way at the end of the hall was a room guarded by a thick black curtain. Peter pulled it back, letting the curtain fall behind him. It took him a second to adjust to the dim light, but then he realized he was in a room commemorating the lives of fallen SHIELD agents. The faces of men and women in black and grey uniforms flashed before his eyes, their names beneath them the only thing Peter would ever know about their lives.

      It all meant nothing to him, until he realized he knew some of these people. Not all of them. Not most of them. But enough. He recognized one man as the man he'd shot as he left the UN with the delegate of Lebanon. The man's name was Paul Beckett. Then there was the old couple he'd shot in Paris. Edith and Parker Ware. And finally, a face he hadn't seen in years flashed up on the screen. She was only there a moment, but Peter would know her anywhere. The nice lady with the blonde hair, who'd given him candles on his birthday. Her name was Joan Potocki. 

      She had been SHIELD. All his life, Peter had thought that she had come from the base. But she hadn't. She worked for the enemy. That's why he had had to kill her. All the time he'd spent thinking about her, and she had been bad the whole time. If she worked for SHIELD, she never could have been on Peter's side. But she was so nice to him. She told him that it was okay to cry.

      Peter wandered out of the room in a daze. He made his way back to the class. The nice lady with blonde hair had been an undercover SHIELD agent. But she had told him she cared about him. No one else at the base did that. How could he go back to his old life if the best part of it had been a lie?

      But he had killed her, and she hadn't been any different from his other marks. The lady with brown hair piled on top of her hair had told him he did a good job, and he had felt proud.

      Peter wandered out of the room in a daze and met back up with Ned. He asked Peter if he had managed to catch a glimpse of the sketches of early War Machine designs. Peter nodded and told him he had. They got back on the elevator, and Patty showed them around some of the lower level R & D laboratories. They got to see some little robots, and even got to mess around in one of the testing labs. Peter had played along, but his heart wasn't in it. If Ned noticed, he didn't say a word.

      They went to lunch, and looked around some more labs. They listened to the head of cyber-security explain what her job was and why they, too, should look into jobs at Stark Industries when they graduated college. They got back on the elevator, but instead of pressing the button back down to the lobby, Patty pressed the button for floor forty-two, the lowest level before it became restricted access. She had a special surprise for them, she promised, something really big.

      When they all took their seats, Patty announced that a few of the Avengers were coming to talk to them. Peter panicked. They'd found him. Not only as Spiderman, but also as the murderer of Joan Potocki, and Edith Ware, and Paul Beckett, and so many more. God, so many more. They were going to take him away, and lock him up for his crimes. He'd never get to see Wade or Ned again. They would hate him forever. He'd never get to leave flowers on Aunt May's grave.

       But they weren't there for him. Instead, the Scarlet Witch and Captain America and a man in a black hoodie came in and told them to stay in school and be safe. It was pretty standard, the sort of thing one would expect out of an informational video from health class. But they seemed to be really invested, so Peter just relaxed and tried to count the minutes until he could be back at his apartment.

       The man with the black hoodie stayed back from the other two superheroes. Peter wasn't sure who he was until he turned around and the hoodie slipped down. It had been a long time since Peter had seen the man, but he would recognize him anywhere. It was the Soldier.

       He prayed the man wouldn't see him, but he had never been lucky. The Soldier made eye contact with him across the room, and he saw the recognition flash across his face. 

      "Peter?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter so far. This is officially the longest fanfiction I've ever written, and my plan for it just keeps getting longer. I want to try to wrap it up in less than twenty chapters, but that's starting to seem a bit unrealistic. I guess I'll just have to see.


	12. Family

     Peter wished he could say that he stayed behind and stood up to the Soldier. He could beat the Soldier when he was seven. What was the fight now? 

      He wished he could say that he bested the Soldier and Captain America and proved to the world just how weak they truly were. He at least wished he could say that he hid within his class and pretended nothing was wrong. He could blend into the crowd and say there had been a mistake. Peter was an awfully common name, after all.

      But that's not what Peter did. He heard the Soldier call his name and he ran. He was a coward. But the Soldier was a coward too, wasn't he? Instead of staying with the true cause, he'd joined some group of thugs who paraded around in tights and made their own rules. And instead of stopping the traitor like he'd done all his life, he panicked and bolted towards the door. He heard Ned call to him, and he realized that Captain America was chasing after him.

       He took the stairs two at a time, then realized that was much too slow, so he began hopping down each flight of stairs. The blond haired idiot called after him, saying he wasn't in trouble, he just wanted to talk to Peter.

      Peter wasn't going to fall for it. He knew the trick. He'd tell someone that he just wanted to chat, and lure them to a second location. Before they could begin to realize what was happening they'd be painted in blood, and Peter's knuckles would be sore. 

      Without warning, Peter felt himself falling. He must have tripped or missed a landing, because he felt himself hitting the ground hard several stories below. His chest ached, but he kept running. He'd probably broken a rib or two, maybe twisted his ankle. It didn't matter, because he couldn't stop. 

       He raced out of the building, throwing the emergency door open. Alarms screamed and lights flashed. Peter's feet pounded against the pavement. Peter hadn't been in the area since he'd come with May over a year ago. He didn't know where he was. All he knew is that he had to keep running.

       Peter sprinted through alleys until he was out of sight of Captain America. Peter realized that a normal teen wouldn't be able to outrun a super soldier, but it was too late now. He scampered up a building and hid on the roof.

       He heard muttering below him. Captain America must have lost his track. He took a sigh of relief, and waited a few minutes until eventually the man had to leave. It took him a while to find his way back to his apartment, but when he did he immediately noticed the phone on the table. He'd completely forgotten about it. There were over twenty messages from Ned about why Peter knew the Soldier, and why Peter had run from Captain America, and for the love of God just please tell him that he was still alive.

      It was a loose end. Peter had to get rid of the phone. Stark could track it and find out where he was. No one but Wade knew where he lived, but the phone was a ticking time-bomb of exposure. Peter pulled on a hoodie and his web-shooters and swung out of the building towards the Hudson. He got behind a group of businessmen and threw the phone into the river while he was almost entirely concealed by them. He followed for a few more minutes, than ran off to a side road. He walked to an alley as casually as he could, then climbed on to the roof to head back home.

     As soon as he got to his apartment he went to his bedroom. He knelt down and opened the lowest drawer in his dresser. Inside were three things. A red and gold book on etymology, a sweater, and a photo of Peter, May, and Ben in front of Ben's police precinct. He pulled the photo out and looked at it. It was the only one of all three of them together. May was smiling and watching Ben rustle Peter's hair. Peter had his mouth open in complaint, but there was still a smile on his lips.

       He missed them. He missed his Aunt and his Uncle. Because that's what they had been. May had told him that first day that they'd met that she'd had a nephew named Peter Parker who had died as a baby. Who was to say that he hadn't survived and been raised at the base? The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head had told him that his mother worked at the base but didn't want to raise him. He'd always believed it. But what if it was wrong?

      The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head had no reason to lie to him, though. He always did what he was supposed to, always listened to her. He never gave her a reason to punish him. She would tell him if his parents had died.

      And did it even matter if May and Ben were his biological relatives?

      Peter reached into the dresser and pulled out the book on etymology. He opened it and flipped to the word family. From the Latin famulus, or servant. The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head had said they were a family. Had he been her servant? He always did what she said. Always. It was his job. Family was putting someone more important before yourself. But Aunt May had also said they were family. And when she had said it she meant to tell him that he was important and loved. He should care about himself as well as others. She'd once said that family was sacrifice, but that you reaped twice the benefits of what you sowed.

       The word aunt came from the Latin amita, which meant exactly what it said.

       Peter held the sweater, and he held the picture, and he let himself sob. He let himself throw his things around the room, and he let himself whisper that he loved his aunt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got my AP results back today (I got a 4 on the AP Stats exam), but don't think that means I won't continue to use these comments as a way to complain about the stress I put upon myself. It may be Summer, but that doesn't mean I'm not taking a class and studying for the SAT like a dork. I just really want to get into this dual enrollment program near my house, and you have to have a minimum of a 700 in each category just to apply. Upon rereading this, I realize it kind of just sounds like I'm bragging, but please don't think I'm obnoxious like that. I just have no life outside of online fan communities and school.


	13. Addiction

      "Peter, what was the one thing I told you not to do?" Wade was sitting on Peter's couch with his phone out. Blurry CCTV footage showed Peter dropping his phone into the Hudson and then running away. The article the video was linked to said that the police and Avengers were seeking information regarding the person in the video.

      "You said not to go near the Avengers," Peter grumbled.

      "And what did you do?"

      "Go near the Avengers."

      "And?"

      "And now they're looking for me, and I screwed everything up. I know," Peter said. He took some leftover curry out of the fridge and stuck it in the microwave, watching the plate twirl around inside. 

      "I mean, it was pretty bad-ass, running from Captain America. I can't deny that. And it's definitely what I would have done. But I still feel like, as your pseudo-brother slash mentor, I should tell you not to do that."

      "Don't kid yourself. You're like my really stupid great-uncle twice removed." Peter took the curry out of the microwave and began to eat. He carried the bowl back to the couch and sat down next to Wade, who put on some cheesy horror movie.

       "Do you think you're going back to school soon? Because you really should, Peter, for no reason other than so you can skip and have your Ferris Bueller moment." Peter had been avoiding school for a few weeks now. It was too traceable. He'd been on a school field trip when the Soldier had found him. There was no way he wouldn't immediately be arrested upon stepping foot on the campus. Peter had to be careful. He never took the same route to the grocery store or Sister Margaret's anymore, and he always used a fake ID when going about his daily business. He still took jobs, but he made sure that no one saw his identity except his marks. He could still go out as Spider-man, though he had to be careful not to be out during his former school hours. If Spider-man suddenly changed his habits, that would be cause for suspicion.

      The day after he'd run from the Avengers Tower, Peter had gone to the library and logged into the fake email he'd created for Ms. Reilly, his "guardian". He told the school that Ms. Reilly's job had relocated her to Philadelphia, but that she hadn't had time to notify the school before the departure. Ms. Reilly was awfully sorry, she was usually so much better about this kind of thing. Peter also sent a message to Ned, just to let him know that he was alive and well. 

      Over the next few days he sent more emails to the school. He had to clarify that he was, in fact, safe, and that his health and education were being taken care of. He made sure to log onto the email account from a different library each time, to make sure as many of his tracks as possible were covered. Peter wished, while dealing with the bureaucracy of the school, that he was sixteen. That way he would be old enough to drop out of school without legal action being taken. 

      Maybe Peter was just being paranoid. The school probably didn't care enough to check up on him. They hadn't cared when Aunt May and Uncle Ben had died. Only, they now knew that Peter was a criminal. A murderer, and a thief, and a con. He'd told Ned that he was normal, told May and Ben that they could trust them. He'd stolen the little time that May and Ben had left in the world, and stolen the opportunity Ned had to spend time with someone better than Peter. Someone who could give Ned all the wonderful things he deserved.

       And Peter was a murderer. He'd killed Joan Potocki, even though she had never wronged him in her life. She'd given him candles, and run her fingers through his hair, and told him he deserved better than his lot in life. But she had been so wrong. He had never deserved better than what he'd gotten. He had killed Joan Potocki, and he never even knew what her crime was. She had probably had a family. A husband or a wife, brothers and sisters, a mother and a father. Maybe she had a son, just like Peter, or maybe she lived all alone with a pair of cats. Peter would never know, because he hadn't cared to find out while he still could. He had let her die. He could have stopped it, but he was too weak. He'd always been too weak.

       He was too weak to stop killing now. It was his job, and it was his addiction. Peter might stop for a day or two, maybe even a week, but then he'd be back. He was a junkie itching for his high, a gambler waiting for payday. 

      That night Peter went out as Spiderman. He donned the mask and the costume, letting the second skin become his own. Spiderman was a brave and true hero, straight out of the classic myths. He knew right from wrong, and he never strayed. His conscience was clear, and he was an icon for every child to aspire to be. For a few hours each night, Peter Parker died, and Spiderman rose from his ashes.

      He took his usual route around the city. He helped firemen pull injured victims out of a major collision, and he walked a girl home from a party after he overheard her telling her friend she was scared of her ex-boyfriend following her back to her parents' house. He chased down a thief, then let him go when he realized that the girl was just a scared teenager. He knew he technically shouldn't do that, but she looked so much like him after his Aunt and Uncle died. Wade had already left for a three day job in Indiana, so Peter could stay out as late as he wanted. He took the girl to a cafe and got her a hot chocolate and a sandwich, and wished he could do more. He gave her forty dollars, all the cash he had on him, and told her to be safe. She knew where to find him if she needed anything else.

      It was about three in the morning when Peter got back to his apartment complex. He sat on the rooftop for a bit, just staring at the stars. You can't see much in New York City, but he knew the stars were there. They always were. He'd gotten to see them in Hawaii one time, when he was on a mission with the Soldier. There'd been no light around them, and he had watched the stars explode out before him.

      Eventually Peter changed back into his normal clothes and walked back into his apartment. He was taking his shoes off when he realized that none other than Tony Stark was sitting on his couch. Stark was dressed in a suit, real bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for someone up at three. He had a hologram of Peter throwing his phone into the river up pulled up in front of him.

       "I would be correct in saying this is you, right?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brother dragged me outside today and I learned that it's apparently been like ninety-five degrees for a few weeks and I never noticed.  
> Also, I was originally going to make a chapter that was me just complaining about the NAQT through Peter, but then I realized that I can't fit that in this story, so y'all have been saved.


	14. Safety

     Peter froze. He didn't know what to do. Tony Stark was sitting in his living room, and he knew everything. Peter's time at the base, his jobs at Sister Margaret's, everything. Now that Stark knew who he was, he would never let him go out as Spider-man again. If Stark knew that Peter was as bad as he was, he would do everything in his power to stop his work. 

     "Do I need to repeat myself? Is this you?" Stark gestured to the hologram picture of Peter.

     "What if it is?"

      "Well, theoretically, if this was you, I'd have to ask you why you Bucky Barnes knows you, of all people, and why you ran from Captain America. It was pretty hard-core, I have to admit, but it was rather poor decision making on your part. Assuming it was you."

       Peter knew what was happening. Stark was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. Make Peter think that he was on his side, just looking out for the Peter. He'd work up to it, sure, until Peter let his guard down. Then Stark would strike, and it would all be over for Peter. It was the oldest trick in the book, easy to see through. All Peter had to do was stay calm, and Stark would never have the upper hand. There's nothing more disconcerting than an enemy who's completely relaxed.

      "You know, Stark, you really sound like Wade," Peter drawled.

      "You're not answering my question, kid. Is this you?" He pointed once again to the hologram. "I'm not going to make you come to the tower or anything, I just want to know that you're okay."

       "In case you were wondering, Wade's my friend. Do you know what he would say right now? He'd tell me that I should get this strange man off my property as quickly as possible, and that I should remind him that he's breaking and entering." Stark tried to get a word in, but Peter waved him off. He had to stay calm and collected, and he'd never be able to do that if he stopped now. "And Wade would make sure to remind me of the cameras installed above the television and in the kitchen that are recording this whole conversation." 

        "Kid, I just want to know what happened."

        "I don't know, Stark. I guess you'll have to find the kid in the video and ask him." They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make a move. Peter wished Stark would just leave already, but he couldn't ask him to. That would be showing weakness, and Peter couldn't afford to be weak when his identity was in danger of exposure. 

      Eventually Stark stood up and headed for the door. He turned the knob and stuck one foot out of the door before turning around.

      "If you ever need anything, feel free to come to the tower."

      "You shouldn't offer that to strange teenagers. You don't know what kind of low-lives are going to show up at your house." 

       "I guess I don't. Stay safe, kid." He shut the door, and Peter collapsed onto the couch. He rested a minute before going to his kitchen and grabbing himself some cereal. He turned the television on and started watching reruns of the Simpsons. Everything was okay. 

-

       Wade thought it was hilarious that Tony Stark had shown up to Peter's apartment. At least he said he found it hilarious. Wade always said he found things funny, even when Peter knew they made him uncomfortable or scared. Peter had tried to ask him about it one time, but Wade had just shrugged it off and told Peter that that was just the way he was.

       Wade was busy revamping the apartment's security. It already had cameras and about six hidden weapon caches, only two of which Wade had told him about. Peter had found the others on his own. But now Wade was installing alarms that alerted both of them when the doors and windows were opened or closed. Peter alone could turn it off with a code. Not even Wade was able to. Wade also got Peter a new burner phone so that he could call Wade whenever he needed help. It was all a bit much, but Peter was touched by the thought. 

      But Peter wasn't so sure about one part of Wade's new super-security measures. Wade had set up a bank account for Peter that let him siphon money straight from Wade's account into his own for everything he needed. Peter wasn't sure how it fit in with everything else Wade had set up until Wade sat him down at the kitchen table. He explained that he was giving him the account so that he didn't have to take anymore jobs from Sister Margaret's. Peter tried to tell him that he didn't mind. He liked his job. But Wade insisted. Peter agreed to not take any hits for the next two weeks. Then, when they saw how that turned out, they could make a more long-term plan. It was a deal.

      There were a lot of things Peter and Wade didn't talk about. They didn't talk about Aunt May and Uncle Ben, and they didn't talk about Peter's life before he moved to New York. They didn't talk about Wade's childhood, or where the scars all over his body came from. But sometimes Peter picked up bits of information from their conversations that Wade hadn't meant to say. He knew that Wade had killed for the first time when he was young. Not as young as Peter, but still far too young. Between the lines of his chatter, Peter knew that Wade was trying to tell him to live a normal life, like the one Wade had always dreamed about.

      Wade wasn't going to stop Peter from going out as Spiderman, though. He thought it was nice that Peter enjoyed helping people. At least one of their alter-egos had to be beloved by the public, right?

       It was only three days after their conversation when it happened. Peter was out, wandering the neighborhood in his costume, when he heard a commotion. He went to investigate the noise and saw two men in an alley. One was clearly drunk. He had a gun in his hand, and he was stumbling around, pointing the gun at the other man, who was sobbing, pressed against the wall. The man against the wall pleaded for the other man to put his gun away, but he wouldn't listen. Peter raced over to try to distract the drunk man so the other could flee. 

      He tried to talk the drunk man down, though he was too inebriated to be able to understand what was going on. The other man scampered away, leaving Peter with the task of getting the drunk man away from his gun. When the man realized that the man he'd been harassing had run off, he got upset, screaming at Peter. There was a bang and a flash as the gun was fired. The man realized what had happened and threw the gun down, running out of the alley. 

      Peter continued walking until he began to feel dizzy. He touched his chest, and pulled it away covered in blood. He'd been shot. The pain slowly started to creep through his system, and he raced towards his apartment. Black spots crept into his vision. He was losing so much blood.

      He barely made it to his living room before he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like half my editing at this point is just taking out all the Southern stuff I inadvertently put in here. I can't exactly have characters from New York saying "y'all" and "bless your heart" all the time. My friend was reading over this chapter and he literally just searched "y'all" and I'd written it seven times without even noticing.


	15. Reunion

     Peter woke up in an unfamiliar white room. The fluorescent light above his head was blinding, and his chest ached. He blinked and tried to remember where he was. The last thing he remembered was leaving his apartment as Spiderman. What had he done? He had been in an alley, and there had been a man. A drunk man, and he'd had something in his hand.

      "Shit," Peter said, sitting up in what could only be a hospital bed, "I've been shot." He touched his chest. It was covered in thick bandages. There was an IV drip in his arm, and Peter knew he would have to take out if he wanted to get out of the hospital. 

      Peter had never liked needles, but he knew how to use them when necessary. It was basic training at the base. Peter applied pressure around the IV and slowly pulled it out. A few drops of blood pooled on his hand, but it wasn't too bad, so Peter left it alone. 

      He was wearing a flimsy hospital gown that did little to cover his body. He looked around the room, but whoever had taken him to the hospital had moved his clothes. It didn't matter. Peter just had to move quickly, and then he could be home, where he had extra clothes. Then he realized that he had been dressed as Spiderman when he'd been shot. Wherever he was, they knew he was Spiderman.

       He cursed himself for being so stupid. He needed to be more careful. He had gotten clumsy. His first priority had to be escape, and then he could deal with his secret identity, if he still had one.

     Peter crept out of the room. He didn't hear any alarms going off, so he opened the door and peered into the hallway. Right across from his door sat a man in a worn gray hoodie. He had ripped jeans that Peter was pretty sure didn't start ripped, and his head was down, staring at his lap. The man looked up at Peter when he opened the door, and Peter realized it was the Soldier.

      The Soldier seemed to have been crying. There were tear tracks on his face, though the Soldier wiped at them when he saw Peter. He also had dark circles under his eyes, they kind Peter saw people get sometimes when they were stressed. 

       "Soldier," Peter said, nodding at the man.

       "Peter, what are you doing out here?"

       "I need to leave. Do you want me to help you get out of here?"

       "This is where I live now. I don't need help." Peter hadn't believed it when he'd first heard that the Soldier was a traitor. He knew the Soldier, and the Soldier didn't do things like that. Peter had felt bad for the Soldier back then, but here he was, standing in front of Peter, alive and well. And he seemed happy, in a way. More than he had ever seemed at the base, though that couldn't be right. 

      But Peter had been happy with the Parkers, hadn't he? Peter had liked going to art museums with Aunt May, and he'd liked watching old movies with Uncle Ben. And none of that had been at the base. He was happy when he streamed all the Children of the Corn movies and ate burritos with Wade. They all cared about Peter Parker, the child, not Peter Parker, the weapon. And maybe there was a difference, and maybe there wasn't. But maybe what was important was that they made the distinction. 

       "Peter, I'm so sorry. For everything. For abandoning you with HYDRA, and for never finding you. I wouldn't even have known you were alive if Deadpool hadn't brought you here," the Soldier said, "and then you were bleeding. You were bleeding so fucking much, and I thought you were going to die, and I'd never get to apologize for all the shit I've done to you." 

       "It's okay, Soldier," Peter said, pulling the other man into a hug, just like May used to do when Peter had a nightmare.

        "I go by Bucky now."

        "I still go by Peter."

\--

       Peter had missed the Soldier. Bucky, he reminded himself. It was strange seeing the Soldier as this new man. He'd seen it in him before, when he smiled at Peter or when he gave him nice lemon soap.

      Bucky had explained that Deadpool had used some favor he had with Hawkeye to get the Avengers to take care of Peter. They would have done it anyway, Bucky said, but Hawkeye was still taking it as the last favor he owed Deadpool. There was some history between them involving some rubber chickens, but Bucky wasn't sure. Peter was happy to know that Wade had brought him here, because it meant that Peter's identity would be safe, and it also meant that Wade would protect Peter from the Avengers if they tried to hurt him.

       "You know, Peter, for a while I didn't know if you were real or not." Bucky and Peter were sitting in Peter's hospital room, although Peter refused to get on the bed. He thought it was ridiculous. Bucky kept reminding him that he'd been shot less than twenty-four hours ago, but Peter stood by the fact that he didn't need to be coddled. He'd been through worse. Bucky said that Stark would have him killed if he found out that Bucky had let Peter get up.

       "Really? Why?" Peter asked.

       "It's just that my memories from HYDRA are so confusing. I can never tell what really happened, and what I'm making up to fill the cracks in my mind. I remember you though, Peter." Bucky took a deep breath. "I'm just so sorry for everything I did. Everything I let you see, everything they made you do."

       "I don't know why you keep treating my time at the base like it was such a bad thing. I really didn't mind. It was good training. I wouldn't be nearly as strong as I am now without it."

       "But you were just a kid, Peter. You were too young to be thrown into that shit."

       Peter thought about Joan Potocki, with her nice blonde hair and her kind eyes. She'd told him one time that he didn't deserve the life that he had, that he would have, that he did have.

       "Maybe I was," said Peter, "maybe I was."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Bucky finally meet again.  
> Also, thank y'all for all the comments and kudos and stuff I keep getting on this fic. Seriously, thank y'all so much.  
> I saw Far from Home today (with this boy who I have since realized thought we were on a date, which puts me, a closeted lesbian who's obviously not into him, in a very awkward situation, but that's another matter entirely) and it's seriously so amazing. I don't think I can include much from it here, but I just love how they characterize Peter in that movie.


	16. Letter

      The Soldier wanted Peter to meet the other Avengers. Peter scoffed at the idea. Wade was going to pick him up that afternoon and they were going to get celebratory ice cream together. Peter had been in his hospital room for only a day and a half, but he was almost completely healed because of his advanced healing factor.

      "Peter, I really think it'd be good for you to meet them. I know you don't want to," the Soldier said, "but I think you'd like them once you got to know them."

       "You know as well as I do that it would be a disaster, Soldier."

      "How many times do I have to ask you to call me Bucky, kid."

       "I'm not a kid."

       "Sure you're not."

      "Can you please give me some space while I get my stuff packed up, Bucky?" Wade had brought Peter a whole duffel bag full of books and board games and copious amounts of blades so that Peter would be entertained while he recovered. Peter had tried to argue that he wasn't going to be there for long, but Wade seemed excited, so Peter decided to humor him. The Soldier had been worried about all the weaponry at first before Peter said he'd report the eight hidden blades on the Soldier's person to the magical voice in the ceiling if he got his knives taken away. 

       "Fine, Peter. If I don't get the chance to see you before you go, come see me sometime at the tower, okay? I've missed you."

       "I've missed you too." Peter watched the Soldier leave before putting the last Bowie knife into the outer pocket of Wade's frankly stupid Hello Kitty bag. Wade had always been into that childish nonsense. After he finished packing, Peter fished around in the drawers of the room's bedside table until he found the pen and paper he knew were in there. He grabbed them and sat at the little table by the window. Then he started to write.

_Dear Soldier,_

_I know that you would prefer that I call you Bucky. You want to change your name so that people don't see you as a criminal, right?_

_I see it in the way you talk about the Avengers. You want them to take you in and care about you the way they care about each other._

_But the secret, Bucky, is that we'll never be like them. We're assassins. We're the dregs of society that they pull up from the river along with the trash. We don't deserve to be loved. We don't deserve to be cared about._

_You're the only one who's ever going to understand me. I try to talk to the kids at my school or the people at the bar I go to sometimes, but they'll never know all of me. They'll just know the bits and pieces that pertain to them. I am not the sum of my parts. I never have been. I'm just some model kit that you can never glue correctly. Someone forgot to pack all the pieces together._

_I've never tried to hide my past, Bucky. When I first started living with my aunt and uncle, I kept my name. Peter Parker. In a way, I think I was trying to get them to seek out the information I was hiding from them. I needed their validation in every aspect of my life. Once, when I first moved in with them, I stood by my aunt's bed and pointed a gun at her head. At the time I told myself that it was because I needed to silence her for the cause. But I think I wanted her to wake up and see what I was doing. So she could have know what kind of monster I am. I don't know whether I wanted her forgiveness or her disgust._

_There's no clemency for us. There's no redemption. There's no repentance for our sins. Each crime we've committed is seared into our flesh like a cattle brand. We're just a bunch of animals. We live and breath to die for someone else, and that's all we'll ever be. There is no escape from our existence._

_One day, Bucky, everyone's going to find out what kind of shitty person I am. They'll realize that I'm dangerous. They'll try to hurt me, to kill me, to beat me into the ground so I can never hurt another soul. And the worst part, Bucky, is that I'm awaiting that day desperately, because I deserve it. I'm scared of myself. I have no control over what happens, over what I do and when I do it. My life is someone else's._

_I just want to be a good person. I want to be a hero, like the Avengers. I shouldn't say that. It's treasonous. The Avengers are dangerous criminals. I know that. I know that, and yet I want to be them. They're always so much happier then me. Everyone loves them. People will never know who I am. It's a product of my design. I don't mind staying out of the spotlight. But I wish people would trust me just a little more._

_I wish I wasn't weighed down by the crimes of my past. I can never be good, because I have been bad. You can never change who you are. You are born what you'll be forever._

_But you changed, didn't you, Bucky?_

_You used to be like me. I used to want to be you, because you were strong, and brave, and ruthless. You were the prophet I seeked. But now you're hanging out with our enemies, the Avengers. And you talk about them like you all are friends._

_Maybe things do change. One of the women at the base gave me a book of etymology when I was still living there. Did you know that almost every word we use today was something else first? The words mean one thing, and over time people change the letters, and they change the sounds of the language, and they change the meaning of it all._

_I've never let myself change. That's the difference. I could have chosen to let myself be the person my aunt thought I was, but I chose to be a killer. I could have stopped the death that follows in my wake when I came to New York. I could have stopped the killing any time in the two and a half years I've live here. But I never have._

_Bucky, I don't want to be evil._

_Please don't let me be evil._

_-Peter Parker_

      Peter looked at the letter in his hands. He ran his fingers over the words, smudging the still-wet ink on the signature at the bottom. He held the letter in his hands and ripped it to shreds. The paper tore, and he crumbled all the pieces together and threw them into the hazards box.

      "Hey, magic ceiling voice lady, how do I get to the Avengers' common room?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has literally nothing to do with this story, but today I learned that kids sometimes die in the Goosebumps universe, and that's a fact that I'm going to have to live with the rest of my life. I don't like it.  
> Also, my I saw my crush at a coffee shop today and we ended up talking for like an hour and a half. She's just so smart, and beautiful, and amazing. I really hope that she's both gay and into me, but that seems super unlikely.


	17. Chicken

     The Avengers stopped talking the minute Peter walked through the elevator doors. They’d all been laughing and shouting before he arrived. Peter had heard it through the thick metal doors, and a funny little flutter had gone through his chest. There was no reason to consort with the enemy, no reason at all, yet Peter wanted to. Because Bucky seemed to like them. He said they were his friends. There was no way for Peter to win. He would be a traitor no matter what he did. A traitor to the cause or a traitor to his friend. Peter didn’t know which was worse.

  
    There was a tableau spread before him in the Avengers’ living room. It was just like one of the tableaux from the eighteenth century that Peter used to read about. He and Ned would go to the library where Ned’s mom worked and spend hours browsing the aisles together. Peter loved the science books, but he was also a sucker for history.

  
     Bucky was sitting next to the Black Widow and the Falcon. Iron Man had stopped mid-chat with Bruce Banner, and Thor was hitting a remote control, visibly confused by it’s function. They all stared at Peter, and he wished he could become invisible.

  
     “It’s a surprise to see you here,” Tony Stark said. Peter was intruding in his home. He wasn’t welcome, and would immediately be sent out for being a nuisance. The fact that Peter had the gall to even come to the Avengers’ tower in the first place was a heinous crime like none ever seen before. But Stark’s voice wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t mean, and it wasn’t angry. He sounded like he was genuinely surprised to see Peter, but that he thought it was a good thing nonetheless. Just like when May would say it was a surprise to see Peter home from school so early after Academic Decathlon practice, then smile and give him chocolate chip cookies.

  
      May would always take a cookie herself and then sit him down. She had loved chocolate so much. She’d ask him how his day went, and he’d say it was fun, but that the NAQT needed to have fewer goddamn questions about operas, and she’d tell him not to curse, and he’d laugh and promise not to, but he would do it again next week like clockwork anyway.

  
      Peter had to stop. He couldn’t think about May. When he started thinking about May he started missing her, and then he’d start crying, and Peter wasn’t going to cry in front of the fucking Avengers. He had to stay strong. It’s what May would have wanted, right?

  
     “Kid?” Stark questioned.

  
     “Oh, sorry. I was a bit distracted,” Peter said. He had to stay calm. Stay calm, stay calm, stay strong. “I did tell you not to invite strange children into your home, didn’t I? You never know who could show up.” Peter gestured to himself. There was a silence in the air that lasted a second, then two, then three. Peter had screwed it up. He was a failure. He had betrayed the cause, and he had betrayed Bucky’s faith in his abilities to be a normal person.

  
      Then Stark laughed. He told Peter he was glad to see him. Maybe Stark should invite more kids to the tower, he said, see who else stumbles through his door.   
And just like that the Avengers went back to normal, and Peter was all alone again, standing huddled by the door.  
Eventually Peter crept over to where Bucky was sitting. He tapped Bucky’s shoulder, and motioned to the seat between Bucky and the Black Widow. Bucky moved over a bit and let Peter sit down.

  
      “I’m glad you’re up here, Peter. Sam and Natasha were betting on whether or not you’d show up,” Bucky said.

  
      “And you weren’t betting?” Peter asked.

  
      “No. Didn’t seem fair. I knew you’d show up.”

  
      “Oh.” Was Peter getting predictable? Was Bucky trying to reprimand him without the others knowing? “Who won the bet?”

  
      “I did,” the Black Widow said. “Sam, you owe me twenty bucks.”

  
      “Just get Tony to give you the money, Natasha. It’s not like he needs it anyway.”

  
      “But that defeats the point. The joy isn’t in the money, Sam, it’s in taking it away from you.” The Falcon flipped her off, but she just rolled her eyes and said she expected the money in her room by Monday.

  
      While the Black Widow and Falcon talked, Peter decided to go over to the kitchen. All they’d been feeding him while he was sick was disgusting hospital food, and Peter wanted something that had a flavor other than bland. He reached into the cupboard and grabbed a granola bar when no one was looking, carefully unwrapping it and disposing of the waste before shoving it all in his mouth.

  
      “I’m really glad that bullet wound healed quickly. I was worried at first because of how much blood you lost, but I guess it wasn’t as bad as we thought,” Stark said, startling Peter.

  
      “I’m also glad it wasn’t a bad injury,” Peter mumbled. Stark laughed again. Why did it make Peter so happy when Stark laughed?

  
      Without warning there was a loud crash and a man in a bright purple get-up fell out of vents. He lay on the ground and groaned, clutching his wrist.

  
      “Clint, for the love of God, stop climbing around if you don’t know how to get out of the vents,” Stark yelled.

  
      “But it’s fun,” the man, Clint, groaned from the hardwood floor.

  
     “And how many times have you hurt yourself this week alone?”

  
      “I chose to exercise my right to stay silent. I want a lawyer before I answer any more questions.”

  
     “Very funny, Clint.” Stark did not sound amused, but he walked over to Clint anyway and started helping him up.

  
      “You know, Peter,” Banner said, bringing Peter’s attention back to the man stirring a steaming cup of brown coffee, “you don’t have to tell anyone you’re enhanced if you don’t want to.”

  
      “What? I’m not enhanced.”

  
      “No one can get over a bullet wound as fast as you did unless something’s happened to change the structure of their DNA.”

  
      “Fine, you’ve got me. But please don’t tell anyone, okay?” If Banner said something to anyone, there was no doubt he’d have to hurt the scientist. Not only did Peter want to avoid meeting the Hulk, but it also seemed like Bucky would be upset if Peter killed one of his friends.

  
       “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. If I could keep the,” Banner paused, letting his metal spoon clink against the rim of his cup, “the other guy a secret, I would.”

  
      “I appreciate it.” Peter really did. As long as only Banner, and of course Bucky, knew, Peter was safe. No one needed to know anything else. It was best for Peter and Spider-Man to stay as two distinct people.

  
      Stark and Clint came back over to the kitchen. Clint was nursing a bruised wrist, but other than that his injuries from the earlier fall seemed superficial.

  
      “Peter Parker, meet Clint Barton. Clint Barton, meet Peter Parker,” Stark said. He motioned between the two of them. Peter gave Clint a half-hearted wave. Clint tried to mirror the motion, but flinched and grabbed his wrist again.

  
      “Hey, you know Deadpool, right?” Clint asked.

  
      “Yeah, why do you ask?”

  
      “There’s just something I’ve been meaning to give him.” Clint reached into a pouch on his waist and pulled out a rubber chicken.

  
—

  
     “Motherfucker,” Wade said when Peter handed him the chicken, courtesy of Clint Barton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for not posting for a few days. I’ve just been busy, and my WiFi decided to just not work for a while, so that was fun. I’ve gotten most things cleared up, so hopefully we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming now.   
> On another note, I watched “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” with my brother tonight, and it’s actually the creepiest thing I have ever seen. Y’all should totally check it out.


	18. Road Trip

      Peter had never been lucky. That was a fact that he wasn't going to try to deny. So it really shouldn't have been a surprise when everything went to shit.

      It had started innocently enough, as most things of a shitty nature do. Wade had thought it would be fun to go on a road trip over over Summer, and Peter had relented. Unfortunately, Peter had been at the tower when he'd gotten the excited call from Wade, and none other than Clint Barton had overheard.

       "A road trip? That sounds awesome," Clint had said. Peter had been spending his weekends at the tower for the last few months. Wade joked that he was splitting custody with Bucky. 

       "Yeah, it'll probably be a fun trip."

        "So can I come?" Clint looked at him like an over-excited puppy.

        "Absolutely not, Clint."

        "Really? Because I'm a trained spy, and it would be a shame if someone were to find out all about your past and tell the team," Clint said. "Although I'm sure you have nothing to hide, right?"

        "Are you seriously blackmailing me?"

        "Do you want to be blackmailed?" Peter sighed. He had thought Wade was bad, but Clint was a whole new level of obnoxious. It didn't seem humanly possible.

        And that's how Peter ended up sulking in the back seat of Clint Barton's crappy minivan eating Doritos while Clint and Wade sang along to George Micheal's Faith in the front seat. 

       "I want you to know that your music is truly terrible," Peter said. "Can you remind me again why I have to listen to it?"

        "Because I'm the driver, and I make the rules," Clint said.

        "Also, it's awesome. You just gotta have faith, Peter," Wade said, singing along to the song about three notes out of key.

        "I hope both of you know that you're disgraces to the human race. Utterly disgusting."

         "Can you give me some of those chips?" Wade asked.

         "Sure."

         Wade had decided that Peter needed to see all the great American sights at least once in his life. They were traveling around to see Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and countless assorted tourist traps. They were even going to see the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota. Peter had gotten really excited about that one, because it was just like the Weird Al song. When neither Clint nor Wade got his reference, he made them listen to four decades of Weird Al's greatest hits. It was much better than the eighties pop Wade loved.

       "I still can't believe you've never been on a road-trip before. What American hasn't had to endure one before?" Clint questioned, turning around to grab a soda out of the backseat.

       "I'm not American," Peter said.

        "Wait, what?"

        "I'm Russian." That's where the base was, though it was mostly staffed by British and American ex-patriots. Although, if May and Ben were his aunt and uncle, didn't that mean that he must have been an American at some point, too? But even if he was, he'd been at the base for most of his childhood, so maybe it didn't matter.

         "Oh, okay, cool," Clint said, sipping his drink.

       They were about a week and a half into the trip when things became truly and totally awful. They were somewhere out in the Midwest, where the corn swallows you like a giant, evil carpet. Maybe that wasn't Peter's best analogy, but one can only drive through so much corn before their brain starts to take a vacation. 

         Everything was going fine up until then. Despite what Peter had thought, Wade and Clint seemed to not only be friends, but also allies in their quest to annoy the hell out of Peter.

        And then the men in the black masks showed up.

        It wasn't like Peter couldn't fight them off. He was perfectly capable of doing it. He just didn't want to. It was the dead of night, and they were driving down a long, straight highway. Peter was tired. It was a lot of work to engage in hand-to-hand combat or exchange gunfire, and Peter just didn't feel up for it. He didn't want to have to get up and do things, and he'd just eaten like five bags of Twinkies. All he wanted to do was listen to Metallica and take a nap, but no. These guys had to show up in their stupid helicopter with their dumb suits and their idiotic semi-automatics.

       Peter didn't need to do anything, though. He could just stay where he was. There was no way for Peter to know whether or not the men were coming for him. Wade had a lot of enemies, and Clint was an Avenger. The armed gunmen could totally be coming for one of them.

       "Agent Parker, please step out of the vehicle," the gunman in the front shouted. So that cleared things up in a way that Peter was a bit annoyed about. He had eaten a lot of Twinkies.

       "Wade, can you tell them that I don't feel like getting out of the car?"

        "Uh, sure." Wade pulled open the skylight of the van and stuck his head out the window. He yelled to the men that Peter wasn't coming out.

        "Agent Parker, if you don't exit the vehicle in the next thirty seconds, we will open fire." Peter groaned in response.

        "I really don't think he's feeling up to your whole evil SWAT team thing right now," Wade said. The gunmen began firing their guns toward the car. They had the aim of a group of Storm-troopers though, so all they managed to do was shoot Wade once in the chest and graze his arm. The rest of the bullets scattered around the car.

       "Seriously? I liked this shirt. I'm sure you all have some unresolved anger issues you need to handle, but this really isn't the way to do it. Violence is not the answer." Peter and Clint snorted simultaneously. The men in the masks shot at the car again, busting one of the headlights.

       "I hope one of you pays for that," Clint muttered.

       "Unlikely. Get Stark to do it," Wade said, before turning around and looking at Peter, who had already pulled Wade's gun bag out from under the backseat. He handed it to Wade. "Thanks, Peter. You know me so well."

       Wade loaded up a gun and began firing at the men. He climbed down from the skylight and got out of the car. There were eight of them, and Wade shot three of them before he had to reload. 

       "Hey, Peter, would you mind helping me with this?" Wade gestured to the remaining men.

        "Do I have to? Because I'm really comfortable here."

        "If you don't come out here right now, Peter, I'm not going to bring you anymore Mexican food when you call me at two in the morning."

         "You wouldn't dare," Peter said as he grabbed a gun from Wade's bag. He rolled out the door and yawned as he shot one of the men. Clint was sitting in the front seat, gripping the steering wheel like his life depended on it. He was pretty useless for an Avenger, but Peter still found himself oddly attached to the man.

        Wade and Peter quickly got rid of the rest of the men, until there was only one left. He was a small man who looked like the personification of a marmot. 

        "Peter, I don't think Dr. Sivana, is going to be happy about this," the marmot-man choked out.

         "I'm sorry, I don't know who that is," Peter said, shooting the man in the head. He turned around and walked back towards the car.

         "So, we were going to the biggest frying pan in the world next, right?" Wade asked as he and Peter climbed into the van. Clint nodded, and they drove around the bodies and the now empty helicopter. They were silent for a good fifteen minutes before Clint spoke.

        "Are we going to talk about that?"

        "I didn't think we were," Peter said.

        "Me neither," Wade added.

         "Okay, just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page."

          It took a few hours for Peter to realize who Dr. Sivana was, and then it hit him like a high-speed train. She was the woman with brown hair piled on top of her head.

         That's why they'd called him Agent Parker. Of course. It made so much sense.

         Oh god, Peter thought, I'm truly a traitor now. 

         He had just destroyed his last chance of ever making it back to the base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye is actually my favorite Avenger (I know, I know), so I'm glad I was able to gratuitously stick him into this story. I finally got the last issue of the Fraction Hawkeye run that I was missing, so I reread the whole run again. My Hawkeye for this story is a sacrilegious mash-up of that Hawkeye and the MCU Hawkeye. (Side note, I couldn't remember how to spell "sacrilegious" so I looked it up and ended up spending like thirty minutes researching historical instances of sacrilege, which was quite fun.)


	19. Perfect

      Things were normal. It was disconcerting. One doesn't just kill one's former caretakers and then go on with their life like nothing happened. But that's exactly what Peter had done.

       Peter, Wade, and Clint had finished their road-trip and gone back to New York. Stark had discovered that Peter wasn't enrolled in school and rounded Bucky, Peter, and Wade in a room together to scream at them about the value of a proper education. He'd then re-enrolling Peter at Midtown High despite his protests. Peter's excuse for his absence was flimsy at best, but everyone had been too scared of the kid who got dropped off by Tony Stark himself to question his story deeply.

       Ned had been giddy to have his friend back. He'd immediately invited Peter for a sleepover at his house so that Ned could fill him in on every minute detail of the time he'd missed. It was nice. Peter sort of understood what everyone said about having a normal childhood while he listened to Ned prattle on. He felt bad for having abandoned Ned for so long, but Ned seemed to think that they had last seen each other the day before based on the way he was talking.

       Stark made Peter go to a therapist. Peter tried to tell him that he was perfectly fine, thank you very much. He had dealt with his own issues for fifteen years. He didn't need some over-paid asshole with too many degrees asking him to explain his dreams. He was fine.

        But was he, really? Because Peter had been thinking a lot since the corn incident, as Wade and Clint had begun calling it. Peter had been raised by a batch of murderers. He had killed, and he had enjoyed doing it. That was pretty fucked up. 

       The base had been a bad place. They had raised a child into a killer and never batted an eye. They sent the child into harm's way, and told him he would only be allowed back when blood flowed through his hands like water. They had tortured Bucky, and they had robbed Peter of the life he could have had with the Parkers. Peter had no baby pictures.

        Peter made Stark promise that any therapist he went to didn't have an office with green walls.

        Peter's new therapist's office was brown. At least it was better than green. Peter sat on a beige couch that was pushed up against a cinder-block wall. His new therapist, Dr. Kafka, said he could call her Ashley if he wanted to. Peter didn't think he was going to do that.

       Dr. Kafka was nice. She told him that they could talk about whatever Peter wanted to, and she didn't seem to care when Peter used that as an excuse to rant about his and Ned's latest Warhammer game.        

       Dr. Kafka told him that it was okay that he was confused about the base. It was deeply traumatic, she said, and he could take as long as he needed to process it. She didn't even seem shocked when Peter said that he sort of missed his missions at the base and his work as a hit-man. He was still Spider-man, but that didn't have the same thrill. 

        Dr. Kafka promised to keep each thing he said a secret, so he told her everything. He told her about Joan Potocki, and he told her about May and Ben, and he told her about how sometimes he still wished the men from the base would come pick him up and take him away. At least at the base he always knew what his purpose was.

        Peter was walking to his apartment on a crisp October afternoon when he felt the tranquilizer dart hit his neck. He knew he had about ten minutes before he was incapacitated, maybe less because he metabolized things much faster than the average person. The men from the base had come for him, and he couldn't let Bucky down by letting them catch him, no matter how tempted he was.

        Peter ran down the nearest alley. It was a risky bet. He had less crowd protection, but he could also use his abilities to escape. He was about to scale the nearest wall when he realized that the men who shot him with the dart likely had a helicopter with them. It was HYDRA's preferred mode of transportation because of it's range and agility. If Peter got onto the roof, he would be more visible. He needed to get back to the street, but he was losing so much time.

       He pulled the phone Stark had given him at the start of the Summer out of his pocket and called the other man. He waited for Stark to pick up. The phone rang once, then twice as Peter ran, clutching the phone to his cheek. He could already feel himself getting drowsy. His feet were lead when Stark finally picked up.

     "Hello?"

      "Stark, it's Peter. I know you're tracking me. Find me," Peter said, before his eyelids started to sag. He was so tired. Sleep couldn't be that bad, could it?

     "Kid, what are you talking about?" 

     "Find," Peter muttered, leaning on the wall, "me."

\--

     "Peter, it's good to see you." Peter blinked his eyes open. He was back in his room at the base, the one with blank walls and a shelf of books. The woman with brown hair piled on top of her head was sitting on the end of his bed. Dr. Sivana, the marmont-man had said. Someone had tucked him in. Dr. Sivana was smiling as she talked.

     "I wasn't expecting to see you again," Peter said.

     "No. I'm really sorry about everything, Peter. I should have gotten you sooner."

     "It's okay."

      "I missed you, Peter. You were always the perfect agent. Only perfect one I ever had." She was acting so nice. Peter didn't know what was happening. She had never said he was even decent before. "Do you know where the word perfect comes from?"

     "It comes from Latin. I forget what the exact word was, but it meant completion," Peter said.

     "That's exactly right."

     "I always kept that book you gave me, the red one on etymology." It felt so wrong to talk to his better like this. What had the world become?

     "That's wonderful. You know, I wanted to be a linguist when I was younger. It was even my college major," Dr. Sivana said.

      "What happened?" Peter asked. He waited for a response as Dr. Sivana played with her ring before looking back up at Peter. 

      "My mom got caught in the cross-fire of someone else's war, and I realized that there would never be peace until the whole world was on fire."

     "I'm sorry." 

     "So am I." Dr. Sivana got up from the edge of Peter's bed and walked towards the door. She opened the lock and stepped out, but kept the door open so that she could still talk to Peter. She told him that he had training tomorrow, and a mission at the end of the week.

     "Peter, the rest of the men are begging for your head on a spike. I hope you understand that I'm going to have to punish you for what you did to those men in Iowa. I know you were surprised, but that's no excuse." She closed the door and slammed the lock in place. 

       Peter hoped she really meant that she was sorry when they dunked his head in an ice bath the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no comments for the day other than to say that my friend from Academic Bowl called me the "female version of a twink" today, and I'm still trying to figure out what he meant.


	20. Yellow

     Peter was tired. He was sore, and he was in pain, but more than anything else he was tired. Tired of training, and tired of the way Dr. Sivana smiled when she hurt him. His training was ten times more brutal than it had been before, or maybe Peter was just too weak from his time outside of the base. It had been a hellacious week, but Dr. Sivana said that Peter was ready now for his first mission in two years.

       "Your mark is a former agent of ours, Camilla Jenkins. She defected about three years ago, and we lost track of her until she resurfaced a few months ago. At that time she made contact with Tony Stark. She's been working as a therapist in Manhattan, going by the name Ashley Kafka. You might have heard of her," Dr. Sivana said. 

       All Peter could think about was how nice Dr. Kafka's smile was. It was warm and caring, but never condescending. 

       "She lives alone, so you're to go to her apartment and wait inside. Take her out when she returns from work, and we'll come pick you up."

       "I'll do my best," Peter said.

       "I know you will, Peter. You always do."

\--

      Dr. Kafka's office was brown, but her home was yellow. It had pale wood floors and pictures of twittering birds on the walls. There was a coffee table with a vase full of coneflowers, and a teapot waiting for use on the tiny kitchen counter. It was all very quaint. All Peter wanted to do was sit on her couch, eat cookies, and relax. But he had a job to do.

      He assembled the gun he had been given and clicked the silencer into place before waited by Dr. Kafka's front door. Dr. Sivana said she would be home around five thirty, but it was only four now. Peter decided to settle down in Dr. Kafka's apartment and wait. He had been reading Pale Fire before he was brought back to the base. Ned was going through a Nabokov phase, and Peter had been roped along. He was happy to find a worn mass-market edition of the book on Dr. Kafka's shelf. 

      Peter's eyes crept across the page and he tried to lose himself in the words, but he couldn't. Those nasty feelings of guilt were eating him alive, devouring him whole from the inside out. Dr. Kafka had said that guilt was okay, that it was healthy. It was part of being human, and Peter would always be human, no matter what his mind told him.

      Dr. Kafka understood how Peter felt. She said that it was okay for him to be himself. She supported him when he was Spider-man, and she let him cry in her office when he told her he'd felt so terrible about what he'd done that he couldn't get out of bed for two days. 

      "I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny." Peter read those words, and he had to put the book down. He didn't know what the base was. Not really. He'd always been told that the words of Dr. Sivana were the true Gospel, but he had no way of knowing if that was true. 

      He could deny the base because he had never truly known it in the first place.

      The door to the apartment creaked open, and Dr. Kafka walked through. She looked at Peter, and there was silence for a moment before Peter raced over and enveloped her in a hug.

       "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Peter whispered.

       "You don't have anything to be sorry for."

       Suddenly Peter's radio crackled to life. Peter picked it up and held it in his hand. This was his last chance. He could kill Dr. Kafka now and get to live the rest of his life easily. He would have a purpose. He would have a reason to be alive. He would be important.

       "I don't need you," Peter said into the receiver. "I've never needed you." The radio buzzed, but there was no response. What had he done? They knew where he was. They would come kill him and Dr. Kafka, and there would be absolutely nothing he could do to stop all of them.

        "Peter?" The voice on the other end almost made Peter cry.

        "Bucky? Is that you?"

        "Yeah, it's me. Where are you?"

        "Dr. Kafka's apartment. Do you know where that is?" It took a minute for Bucky to respond.

         "Stark's got it. He's coming to get you. He'll be there in a few minutes. Are you safe right now?"

         "I think I am, Bucky, I think I am."

\--

        Peter and Bucky were sitting in the kitchen of Avengers Tower, each sipping a cup of black coffee. Peter would be going back to school on Monday, but for now it was Friday and Peter had the whole weekend before he had to try to explain his disappearance to Ned. Stark had told the school that Peter had gotten pneumonia, but Ned would know better than that. He'd probably already hacked into the local hospital's data to find out about Peter. It was a bit disturbing how easily a teenager could break through a firewall.

     "I took your file while we were at the base," Bucky said. He sipped his coffee, as if his sentence were as normal as any other. He may as well have been discussing baseball games from the thirties or some movie he wanted to see over the weekend.

    "I didn't know they kept one on me." Peter had always been important, but never important enough to be remembered.

    "They kept one on every one of us."

     "Even you?"

     "Yeah. You should have seen Steve's face when he got it. I don't think I've seen him that freaked out in a long time."

     "It's too bad I missed it."

     "It really was great." Bucky got up and poured himself another cup of thick, black coffee. He and Peter both liked to drink it so strong they could chew it. "Do you want to read your file?"

       "I guess it would probably be good to know."

       "I'll leave it in your room."

        That night Peter found a thick manila envelop, held together with binder clips, lying on his bed. On the top it said "Parker, P". He opened it and began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this story's wrapping up. It will probably be less than five more chapters (although I said the whole story would be ten, so maybe don't trust me completely). After I'm done I think I'm going to write some more stuff in this universe, because I'm really enjoying writing the relationships between the characters. If you have any stuff in particular you want to see just tell me.


	21. Acceptance

     Peter’s whole life was laid before him. He was bare to the world, nothing more than a creature that lived between the lines of the file. He could see everything that had ever been done to him at the base written out I’m emotionless text.

      Everything he had ever done. None of it mattered. That body he’d grown to love had only been an experiment by Dr. Sivana to see how he would respond to death. He had tested well. They had planned for him to kill Joan Potocki months in advance. She would have died no matter what he did. His two years in New York had been a test of his loyalty. He had failed.

      All of it together should have been agonizing. He should have cried and ripped the folder apart. He should have torn the Star Wars posters off the walls of the bedroom Stark had let him use at the tower. He should have screamed until his was hoarse and his mouth tasted like blood.

      But he couldn’t focus on his life in those papers. The only thing he could see was the name Julia. It was Dr. Sivana’s first name.

       It didn’t matter what she was called. It shouldn’t matter, but he couldn’t rip the thought out of his mind. It crawled through his brain and devoured everything in it’s path, and there was nothing Peter could do to stop it.

       Julia was a name people had. People named Julia had families, and favorite movies, and musicians that they loved but pretended not to. Julia wasn’t the name of a monster. It was the name of a human being.

      A human who had done everything to him that hurt. She had taken his life in her hands and crushed it like an empty soda can. Right at the top of the file it said that Peter had been acquired at age one. Someone named Julia had taken him away from the life he could have known and raised him to be the fucked up creature he was today.

       Peter’s life wasn’t ruined by some extraterrestrial beast without a face. It was ruined by a person. It was ruined by all the people at the base who hadn’t cared about the little boy in the grey cement cell, and it was ruined by the people who never came to save him until it was too late.

       Peter should have been angry. He knew that. He should have been sad, and confused, and vengeful. But he felt empty inside. He was Pandora’s box, and the only thing left to flutter out was hope. A weight had been lifted off his chest that he hadn’t known was there.

      He put the folder into the drawer of his bedside table and went to find Bucky.

—

      Bucky was in the gym, beating a punching bag to death. The rhythmic sound of his fists hitting the leather rang through Peter’s ears as he pushed the door open. Bucky looked up at him when the door creaked on it’s hinges. Peter made a note to try to get Stark to install automatic doors on the training floor.

      “Did you have a chance to go through it?” Bucky asked, going back to hitting the bag without mercy.

       “Yeah, I did.” Peter grabbed a set of throwing knives and began absentmindedly throwing them at the targets Clint and the Black Widow used. He didn’t feel like actually doing something productive, like Bucky, but it was nice to have something to do with his hands.

       “How was it?” The crack of the punching bag echoed through the massive, empty room.

       “Nothing I didn’t already know.” A knife landed right in the middle of the target. Bucky punched the bag again.

      “So you’re okay?”

      “I already told you, Bucky. I’m fine,” Peter said.

      “If you’re sure, I need to warn you that Tony’s going to want to see what’s in that file. He’s still itching to get his hands on mine.”

     “I don’t see why he’d want it.”

     “Tony’s just like that,” Bucky said, “he likes to know things. Gets all weird and jumpy when he’s in the dark. It’s pretty fun to mess with him.”

      “I’m always willing to annoy an old man. Not you of course, but maybe Steve.”

      “I’m not sure Steve could tell if you were trying to freak him out. It’s not that I’d say that he’s dense, more,” Bucky seemed to look for the right word in the damp air of the gym’s ceiling, “literal.”

      “Sure. Literal.” Another knife hit the target. “But, regardless, I don’t see why Stark would want to see my file. Yours I get, but why mine?”

       “Did you not notice? He’s got a soft spot for you.”

      “That seems a bit out of character for him,” Peter said.

      “You should just talk to him. I bet you’d be surprised.”

—

     Stark came to Peter’s room that afternoon. He was holding the broken pieces of some bit of machinery or another.

      “You like this kind of stuff, right?” Stark asked, holding up the ripped wires and circuit boards.

      “Uh, yeah. How’d you know?”

      “You go to that nerd school for science, but that’s unimportant. Do you think you could help me with this?”

       “Depends. What is it?”

       “You know that little drone Sam loves so much? The one he annoyingly calls Droney?” Peter nodded. “Well I was doing some upgrades on it, and then I kind of dropped it a couple stories off the Tower, and now it’s very broken and I can’t quite figure out what happened. Every time I try to fix it it just explodes in my face.”

      “The great Tony Stark is asking a teenager to fix a tiny little drone that he built himself. How cute.”

      “I could do it myself. It would just take time that I don’t want to waste right now.”

     “You’re a billionaire. You have all the time in the world.” Peter got up anyways though, and followed Stark to his lab on one of the higher floors of the tower. Peter was fairly certain Stark was using the drone as an excuse to talk to him, but as the hours passed and they moved from the drone to Clint’s new arrows to a new web formula, Peter didn’t think it mattered.

      Eventually Bucky walked into the lab, clutching a cup of coffee and his metal arm with his flesh hand.

     “Peter? What are you doing here?”

     “The better question, Bucky, is what are you doing here?”

     “I’m going to let the fact that one of my arms isn’t connected to my body explain for me.”

      “Oh, that makes sense,” Peter said, then giggled inexplicably. Stark had let him drink three Red Bulls over the night.

      “God, how long have you all been up?”

       “That depends,” Stark said. “What time is it now?”

      “Around ten in the morning.”

      “Many, many hours then,” Tony said. Bucky sighed.

      “Peter, go to bed,” he said. Bucky glared at Stark. “I think me and Tony need to have a conversation.”

      Peter ran out of the lab and raced down the stairs until he got to his room, where he passed out on his bed. He slept all through the day. When he woke up, he realized he hadn’t felt as good as he did now in months.

      That night Tony Stark found a thick Manila envelope waiting for him on his lab table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending I was originally planning for this story was going to be Ned finding out about Peter’s past (but I have a better one now!), so I’ve decided to just make the Ned thing the first ficlet in this universe, so look out for that. Also, apparently, look out for my run-on sentences.


	22. Memory

     The morning sunlight streamed through the enormous glass windows of the common room. It was a bit showy for Peter’s taste, but Stark seemed to get a kick out of it. Peter did enjoy getting to see the city in the morning, at least.

  
     Peter had to go back to school tomorrow, but for now he was taking the day to relax. Just blow off some steam, like Wade kept telling him to do. Peter’s relaxation, though, ended with far more video games played and a few fewer dead bodies in dumpsters. Clint had already arranged a Mario Kart tournament to be held at three in the afternoon. The Black Widow (Natasha, as she told him to call her) was already organizing a betting ring around the games. Steve and Clint were favorited to win, with Dr. Banner as an underdog and Peter as the wildcard.

     It was far earlier in the morning than Peter would have liked, but he had been up the night before. His brain had raced trying to figure out how to explain his weeklong absence to Ned, and how to tell Bucky that he should stop worrying about Peter, and all the homework he would have to make up when he got back to Midtown. His thoughts were like flies, buzzing around his head with no thought paid to his comfort. All in all he had gotten only five or six hours of sleep the night before, but there wasn’t much he could do now besides throw back a coffee and try to start his day.

     He was pouring himself his first cup when he realized he wasn’t the only one in the room. Stark was leaning against the kitchen wall, sipping out of a Captain America themed mug. Peter was tempted to snap a picture so that he could show it to Stark the next time he was being obnoxious, but then he decided against it.

      “I wasn’t expecting to see you up so early, Peter,” Stark said.

      “And I was expecting a moment of solitude. I guess neither of our expectations are going to get met this morning.” Peter finished pouring the cup and began drinking. It felt good to let the bitterness drip across his tongue.

     “You probably shouldn’t drink coffee. It’s not good for growing boys.” Peter quirked his eyebrow. “Plus, I don’t know how it affects you with your weird Spider-powers.”

      “It can’t be that bad. You seem to be through a couple cups already,” Peter said. He could tell Stark had been up for a while. The man had already dressed in a Def Leppard t-shirt and jeans, his lab clothes.

      “I may have had enough coffee to tranquilize a horse, but that shouldn’t have any bearing on what you’re drinking,” Stark replied, putting his cup down and opening the kitchen cabinets. He pulled out a box of cereal and showed it to Peter, who nodded. Stark grabbed two bowls and poured the cereal into each, keeping one for himself and handing the other to Peter. They ate in silence, the only disturbance when Stark tried to stop Peter from pouring himself a third cup of coffee after having been unable to stop Peter from getting the first two. He was unsuccessful yet again.

      It was strange how easily Peter had settled into a routine. It almost felt like being back at the Parkers’ house. But that thought made his chest ache. He missed the Parkers so much it hurt, but they were dead and there was nothing he could do about it.

      He wondered what May and Ben would think of him now. They’d probably be disappointed. He had never told them what a shitty person he was. They’d just thought he was some lonely homeless kid they’d picked up off the street who vaguely resembled their dead nephew.

     Worse than any omissions was the fact that he’d wanted to go back to the base while he was living with the Parkers. He had wanted to go back to the place where they told him to kill and he gladly complied. And once he’d finally gotten back to the base he couldn’t even complete one mission. He was a failure at everything he did. He always was, and he always had been.

     “What’re you thinking about, kid?” Stark asked.

     “Oh, nothing.”

     “You sure?” Stark leaned on the counter and tapped his spoon against the rim of his bowl. “I know I may not seem like the soft, cuddly type, but I’m here if you ever need to say anything.”

     “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind if I ever need anything.” He wouldn’t, but Stark’s gesture was still appreciated.

     There was a minute of heavy silence.

     “I didn’t read it, you know.”

     “What?”

     “The file. The one you left in my room, about yourself. I didn’t read it,” Stark said. Peter didn’t know how to respond. He had just assumed Stark would take any chance given to probe into Peter’s life.

     “Why not?”

     “I don’t care about it. I’d rather just know you. The Peter Parker who spends hours explaining Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Thor and who loves math but still types basic arithmetic functions into his calculator, just to check. That’s the real Peter. I like that Peter,” Stark said. “Unless you want me to read your file. Then I’ll read it. I just thought that you might not really want me to read it.”

     “I don’t know if I want you to see it. I thought I did, but who really knows, Stark?”

     “Nobody knows. And God, kid. How many times do I have to ask you not to call me Stark? It’s weird. No one else calls me that.”

     “But it’s your name!”

     “Bucky’s name is James, but no one calls him that, right? Just think of Tony as a nickname.”

     “Whatever you say, Stark.”

     “You’re literally doing it right now Peter,” Stark said over his shoulder as he put his empty bowl into the dishwasher and headed towards the elevator.

     “Goodbye Mr. Tony-man!” Peter called as the doors of the elevator closed. He heard Stark make a bizarre combination of a laugh and a sigh as the elevator raced to the highest lab floor.

—

     That afternoon Peter won the Mario Kart race after a particularly fierce battle against Clint. He was only one blue shell away from defeat, but he managed to wrestle victory out of the jaws of the beast. Natasha smiled as she collected money from almost everyone. Bucky seemed smug when he reminded Natasha that he’d had his money on Peter the whole time. Natasha responded by saying that Bucky was very much being a dad.

     Peter felt good. He could go to school tomorrow, and he could see Ned, and his life could be normal. He could do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters! And then a ton of ficlets and maybe another fic, but still, we’re drawing to an end. Also, I just found out I have Summer work from three classes and my school year starts on August first, so I guess it’s just time to die.


	23. Pity

     Peter was most definitely not okay. The fluorescent lights of the school were too bright, and he could already smell the spaghetti from the cafeteria that made him gag, even though it was only eight in the morning. How stupid could he have been to think he could just walk right back into Midtown like nothing had happened? People would have questions, and Peter didn’t want to deal with them right now. He could handle a twenty-hour interrogation, but high schoolers were a whole other ballpark.

     He’d already dropped his things off at his locker, so he slunk to his Calculus class. He was the only sophomore in a class of seniors. Aside from a few snickers about his age, everyone mostly left him alone. The hallways were loud, with kids shouting things back and forth to each other in the far too thin halls, but he knew it would be quiet if he could just make it to his class.

     His breath was caught in his throat by the time he pushed open the door, but then the blissful quiet washed over him. He put his books down at his usual seat in the first row and then walked up to talk to his teacher. She told him that she was sorry that he had been sick, but that he didn’t need to worry because she had the work he missed in her desk. She pulled out a stack of papers, and it really wasn’t that big now, was it? Only ten or so pieces of paper. That wasn’t that bad. Peter could deal with that.

     The rest of the class filtered in until the bell, and then the class started. It was uneventful. Peter was relieved.

     Honors Chemistry and English went the same as his first period, and then it was time for lunch. Peter had been avoiding Ned all day, but there was no way he could avoid him at lunch without drawing suspicion. They always sat together, with that scary girl Michelle lingering in their vicinity.

     Peter pulled the lunch Bucky had insisted on making out of his locker and slowly walked over to his and Ned’s normal table at the edge of the cafeteria. Peter couldn’t ignore Ned, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put off their inevitable conversation as long as possible.

     Eventually he had to sit down. He pulled out his sandwich and started eating. Ned was reading Invitation to a Beheading, but he put his book down when he heard Peter.

     “You’re back! Dude, you missed so much. Flash had this whole thing about how he should take over your spot on the Academic Decathlon team if you were dead, and Liz got pretty pissed at him for it,” Ned said. “Actually, that’s pretty much the only thing you missed.” Peter just nodded. Ned had managed to say everything in the span of only a few seconds, which would have been impressive if Peter hadn’t once heard Ned explain the entire universe of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books in a minute flat.

     “Sounds cool. Do we still have practice tomorrow?”

     “I think so. I’ll have to check.”

     “Thanks. Get back to me when you can.”

     “I totally will.” Ned took a bite of his apple. “It sucks that you had pneumonia last week. I had it once when I was like eight, and it was terrible.” He shuddered at the memory.

      “Yeah, it was not a fun week.”

      Ned didn’t know that Peter was lying about the pneumonia. He hadn’t hacked into any databases or found out any of Peter’s ugly secrets. It would be ridiculous to worry that he had. What reason did Ned have to think Peter was lying about his life?

     Ned trusted Peter. From the moment they met, Ned had thought Peter was a good person. Peter couldn’t have told you what was good and what was evil at the time, yet Ned had decided that Peter was someone he could be friends with. Maybe Peter was abusing that trust by not telling him the truth. But it was so nice to have someone who thought highly of him without a second thought.

     The Avengers pitied him. They saw him as some little kid with a traumatic past and a wake of dead relatives. They cared about him, he knew they did, but they only did it because they had to. They thought of him as a sick little puppy, and they didn’t have the heart to kick him out onto the streets.

     Ned, though, Ned was Peter’s friend unconditionally. Ned didn’t like him out of pity. Ned liked him because he thought Peter was cool, and Peter was going to keep it that way.

     “Hello? Earth to Peter?” Ned snapped his fingers, and Peter realized he had been staring into space.

     “What? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

     “I asked if you wanted to hang out this afternoon.”

     “Oh, sure. I have some homework, but other than that I’m totally free,” Peter said.

     “Cool. I’ll meet you at your locker after school.”

     The rest of Peter’s classes were all okay. He struggled with the conditional and subjunctive forms of verbs in Spanish, but got to use all his obscure knowledge about the Gilded Age in AP US History. He had some more homework from his afternoon classes, but he was expecting it, and he knew it wouldn’t take more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half all together.

      He met Ned at his locker when the final bell rang and they headed out of the school doors. And then he saw them. Clint and Wade were both in their full superhero get-ups, tights and everything, standing outside of Midtown High School. Kids were taking pictures of them and asking for autographs. When they both saw Peter they waved at him.

     “Peter! Over here!” Wade shouted. Peter tried to ignore them. There was obviously some other Peter they were talking to, right?

     “Peter! Peter Parker!” Clint made eye contact with him while he yelled. There was no way to avoid them now. Peter tried not to notice all the eyes on him. Ned was star-struck.

     “I can hear you, okay? You can stop shouting,” Peter said.

     “We just thought we’d come and say hi to you after school, see how you were doing. Wade also said he wants to get ice cream. How does that sound?” Clint asked.

     “Fine. Now can we please get away from my school?”

     “Aw, I think he’s embarrassed of us,” Wade cooed.

     “Just go, okay?”

     “Fine, fine. And bring your little friend,” Clint said. Ned pointed to himself, and Peter nodded. Ned let out a shrill little cheer, then clamped his hand over his mouth. Peter did his best not to laugh.

     As Peter watched Ned excitedly talk to Wade and Clint, who were showing him embarrassing photos of Peter taken by Stark’s AI, he decided that those two, at least, did not pity him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t write a self-insert into this story. But Ned is basically just my best friend at this point, so maybe I’m not completely innocent.


	24. Names

     It was Peter's sixteenth birthday. It was a Saturday, and Stark had let him invite Ned and Michelle to the tower. Peter wasn't sure that he could have stopped Michelle if Stark hadn't let him invite his friends, though, for she was nothing if not perseverant.

     Ned seemed about six seconds from having a stroke as Steve Rogers, the one and only Captain America, shook his hand. Ned had arrived early, and was having a field day meeting all the Avengers. He still couldn't believe that Peter lived at the tower, and was anxiously awaiting the day Peter explained everything to him. Peter was dreading that day as much as Ned looked forward to it.

      Bucky and Stark had each individually tried and failed to bake Peter a cake, and had together gone to the store and bought an ice cream cake to make up for their confectionery nightmares. The remnants of their failed sojourns into baking still lingered in the air, but no one seemed to mind.

      Peter had tried to tell Stark that he only wanted a casual party with no theatrics. But he was suspecting more and more that that wasn't going to be the case as he watched Thor lug around cases of Asgardian beer. Someone had tried to explain to him that Midgardian teenagers didn't drink, at least not around adults, but Thor insisted that it was necessary for the celebration. Eventually everyone gave up and accepted that Thor would always bring the booze to the party, no matter what, so they let him carry around gallon after gallon through the common room.

      The magical ceiling lady, who Stark insisted should be called FRIDAY, told Peter that Michelle was waiting outside to be let in.

      Peter didn't understand why Stark was so hung up on names. Stark always insisted that people call him Tony, and that his little robots be called bytheir names. Peter wasn't in a place to criticize, even if he found it very odd.

      Peter had a lot of names. Parker, kid, Spiderman, Peter. He didn't care what anyone called him. Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Romeo, for a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

      Peter wanted to dwell on the etymology of the word name. He wanted to do it so much it burned. He wanted to ponder how the Old English nama and genamian became related to Dutch naam to form the modern word name . He wanted to tell no one and everyone about how fascinating words are. He wanted to explain how they grew like crystals from the mouths of babes.

      He would have spent time thinking about it before, when he was still at the base. He would have thought about words so that he didn't have to say any of his own. He could dwell on someone else's history and let his own history stay untouched in the dusty corners of his mind.

      But he didn't have to do that anymore. He told FRIDAY to let Michelle in through the side door that the Avengers used to avoid the security of the tower. A few minutes later, Michelle showed up, seemingly disinterested in the whole affair.

      "I can't believe you're throwing a birthday party. How lame," she said.

      "Well, I think it's awesome," Ned replied.

      "Are you even going to mention the fact that it's in the Avengers tower?" Michelle shrugged and pulled out a brown-paper wrapped package from the inside pocket of her coat.

      "Usually I don't go for this kind of thing, but here you go." She handed the package to Peter, who unwrapped it. Inside was a VHS of the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.

      "Oh my god, this is amazing! How did you find it?" Peter showed Ned the tape, and he was just as excited as Peter.

      "I have my sources." Peter imagined that if Michelle didn't hate gum (which she did for reasons once described to him at length during a break in an Academic Decathlon practice) she would be blowing a massive bubblegum bubble.

       "Dude," Ned said, "we have to watch this as soon as possible."

       "You better watch it with me. I haven't actually seen it yet. But I heard it's so bad they never rebroadcast it or officially released it on home video," Michelle said, continuing to chew that metaphorical gum.

       "Of course, Michelle."

       "You can call me MJ. We're there."

\--

       Peter had never gotten as many presents in his life as he got that day. After he, MJ, and Ned watched the Star Wars special and discovered that Chewbacca canonically named his son Itchy, they went back to the common room where the Avengers were all waiting with their vibrant, polka-dotted gifts in hand.

      Stark gave him a set of extra keys to his lab, which made Peter cry, which then made Stark cry, which made everyone else in the room feel very uncomfortable. Bucky got him a new journal, because he knew how much Peter loved to sketch his ideas, as well as a book about how to learn Russian. He'd been pestering Peter to do it for months now so that he could join Natasha and Bucky in their weird little ex-Hydra Russian book group. 

      Natasha got him another Russian langauge book and a very large knife, the latter of which Stark tried to take away. Peter flashed him the biggest puppy-dog eyes he could, and Stark let him keep it, mumbling something about SHIELD. 

      Clint and Wade gave him a giant box of rubber chickens and what appeared to be several hundred dollars in cash, though Peter could never be sure with those two.

       It was a wonderful evening, and MJ and Ned left the tower sated with sugar and laughing about Wade's awful attempts at karaoke. Clint's version of "I'm All Out of Love" had been bad, but Wade singing "Love Shack" had been much, much worse.

      The rest of the Avengers filed back to their rooms until it was just Bucky and Peter alone in the common room. They sat together in comfortable silence, each watching the twinkling sea of stars that was Manhattan crest and fall below them. The silence grew thin before Bucky spoke.

      "You know, Peter, I'm really proud of you."

      "Thank you?"

      "I know you don't do well with compliments, but you're really turning out to be a great kid. And a great person. I'll always be sorry I couldn't help you when you were little, but the past is in the past, right?" Peter nodded. "Here, Stark wanted me to give this to you." He pulled out a small parcel and handed it to Peter. 

       "Is this-"

        "Yeah. Now go save the world, kid."

\--

      Peter stood on the very top of the tower in his new Spiderman suit. He pulled his mask down around his face, and took a breath of the cold night air.

       He was okay. He was ready.

       He was Spiderman.

       He was Peter Parker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've come to the end!  
> I hope y'all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'll be posting the next couple works in this series over the next few days, so watch out for that.  
> Also, if you want to talk or you want a beta for your story (I much prefer editing other people's work to my own), please send me an email at honorable0mention@gmail.com (that's a zero, not an o).


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